In other words the untrained reader, whether young or old, must be trained and exercised on the right books at the right time. Not that he should be coaxed and tempted with light fiction or showy trash, quite the contrary; he must acquire strength of mind and intellectual habits—he is to be trained to grasp serious thought as well as highstrung romance. Conan Doyle's thrilling "White Company" or Blackmore's tender "Lorna Doone" form excellent entertainment, but they must be supplemented by sturdy common sense, such as one finds in Franklin's "Autobiography," Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast," or Bancroft's account of the Lexington and Concord fight. The young mind, and the old one as well, cannot grow strong and able without exercise. Just as tennis, football, swimming, or golf help to develop and strengthen our physical powers, so the mind likewise must take exercise that will ripen and enlarge the intellectual powers. The joy of living is dependent upon full vigor of brain and brawn; the weakling, whether in intellect or in muscle, loses the best that life has to give. Our ideal must be not merely a sound mind in a sound body but, rather, a strong mind in a strong body.
The lists that follow have been devised to meet the requirements for training the mind to a ready facility and enjoyment of books and reading. Naturally, these groups are arbitrary, they definitely place one author or selection in the eleven year old's list, another in the fifteen; whereas either might well be transferred, in individual cases. The object manifestly is to group writers and selections as a means of guidance and help to the average reader whether parent or child, but not to draw hard and fast lines. The sooner the reader becomes ready to wander as he will, the sooner will he be a true booklover.
Seven to Ten Years of Age. At this time of life, as every one knows, fairy tales are an unfailing delight and form the foundations, moreover, of all thorough literary appreciation. In addition to these, tales of adventure or of travel, such as Malory's Morte Darthur, or Marco Polo's astonishing discoveries in China, serve as admirable supplementary reading at this age.
Æsop
Fables
Andersen
Fairy Tales
Grimm
Fairy Tales
Harris
Uncle Remus
Irving
Rip Van Winkle
Key
Star Spangled Banner
Kingsley
Water Babies
Laboulaye
Poucinet
Malory
Morte Darthur
Perrault
Fairy Tales
Polo
Travels
Russian Lit.
The Water King
Smith, S. F.
America
Swift
Gulliver's Travels
Eleven and Twelve Years of Age. The next step consists in awakening the sense of understanding, rousing the mind to grasp actual scenes and situations. For this purpose the "Pilgrim's Progress," "Two Years Before the Mast," "The Village Blacksmith," or "Horatius" are especially suitable. For while the fairy tale element is continued in "Cupid and Psyche," the "Odyssey," and "Undine," it is to these more realistic selections that we must look for the stimulus to imaginative growth that the children need. For this reason, "Robinson Crusoe" is of paramount value at this time simply because it trains the young mind to picture the scenes or events with the utmost care for details; probably no other work of fiction in English Literature can equal it for realistic vividness and precision.
Apuleius
Cupid and Psyche
Brown, J.
Rab
Bunyan
Pilgrim's Progress
Carroll
Alice in Wonderland, etc.
Cooper
Pathfinder
Dana
Two Years Before the Mast
Defoe
Robinson Crusoe
Fouqué
Undine
Gesta Romanorum
Hawthorne
Snow Image
Hemans
Casabianca
Pilgrim Fathers
Herodotus
Legends
Homer
Iliad
Odyssey
Howe
Battle Hymn
Hughes
Tom Brown
Japanese Lit.
The Ronins
Livy
Legends
Longfellow
Village Blacksmith
Hiawatha
Evangeline
Macaulay
Horatius
Melville
Typee
Meredith
Shagpat
Raspe
Baron Münchausen
Read
Sheridan's Ride
Whittier
Barbara Frietchie
Thirteen and Fourteen Years of Age. This period should mark the beginning of true reading power—the faculty of perceiving and absorbing the pictures, the facts, the ideas that lie within the printed page. The true joys of reading first-class fiction, for example, "Don Quixote" or "The Cloister and the Hearth," are usually first experienced in these years. And in the same manner young readers delight in the more vivid pages of history, such as "The Relief of Leyden," or "The Conquest of Peru," or—best of all—Raleigh's telling account of the fight of the 'Revenge' together with Tennyson's magnificent poem, built up from the prose of Raleigh. For it is in such passages as these that the natural tendency to hero-worship is roused and fostered. Jim Bludso, Sir Launfal, Alexander the Great, John Halifax, Lorna Doone, and Constantia, together with the splendid characters in the works already mentioned, all establish in the minds of the average boy and girl examples of courage, courtesy, and nobility that are never forgotten.