For example, when the Fourth of July is at hand, or is in some way brought into notice, then is a good time to tell a child briefly about the war of the American Revolution, and to give him a book about the Boys of Seventy-six. When his attention is called to a picture of the Tower of London, he is in a good mood to read some of the more impressive stories of English history. If he is at the seashore, or among the mountains, on a visit, he can be shown some object of nature,—a shell or a crab, a rock or a tree,—as a means of interesting him in a little book about this or that phase of natural history or of woodcraft.
A child’s question about Jerusalem, or Athens, or Rome, may be improved to his advantage by pointing him to the narrative of the Children’s Crusade, or to some of the collections of classic stories in guise for children. An incidental reference to Africa, or India, or the South Sea Islands, may open the way for a talk with a child about missions in those parts of the world, and may be used to give him an interest in some of the more attractive books in description of missionary heroes ancient and modern. The every-day mentions of men and things may, each and all of them, in their order, be turned to good account, as a help in cultivating a taste in reading, by a parent who is alert to make use of such opportunities.
A parent ought to be constantly on the watch to suggest books that are suitable for his child’s reading, and to incite his child to an interest in those books. It is a good plan to talk with a child in advance about the subject treated in a book, which the parent is disposed to commend, and to tell the child that which will tend to awaken his wish to know more about it, as preparatory to handing the book to him. Reading with the child, and questioning the child concerning his reading, will intensify the child’s interest in his reading, and will promote his enjoyment as he reads.
And so it is that a child’s taste in reading will be cultivated steadily and effectively in the right direction by any parent who is willing to do the work that is needful, and who is able to do it wisely. A child needs help in this sphere, and he welcomes help when it is brought to him. If the help be given him, he will find pleasure as well as profit in its using; but if he goes on without help, he is liable to go astray, and to be a lifetime sufferer in consequence.
XIX.
THE VALUE OF TABLE-TALK.
In proportion as man rises in the intellectual scale, does he give prominence to mental and moral enjoyments in conjunction with his daily meals. He who looks upon the table merely as a place for feeding the body, is so far upon the level of the lower order of animals. He who would improve his time there for the advantage of his mind and character, as well as for the supply of his physical wants, recognizes a standard of utility in the humbler offices of daily life that is perceptible only to one whose higher nature is always striving for supremacy above the lower.
With all the tendency to excesses in the line of appetite among the Greeks and Romans in classic times, there were even then gleams of a higher enjoyment at the table through social intercourse than that which mere eating and drinking supplied. When the Perfect Man was here among men, he showed the possibility of making the household meal a means of mental and spiritual improving; and there are no profounder or more precious truths in the record of our Lord’s earthly teachings, than those which are found in his words spoken to those who sat with him eating and drinking at their common meal. The “table talk” of great men has, for centuries, been recognized as having a freeness, a simplicity, and a forcefulness, not to be found in their words spoken elsewhere.