Fig. 7.—It is a mistake to try to make bookworms of children. Many of their best books are “green fields and running brooks,” also frequent opportunity to play together in groups and neighborhoods.
1. The best reading.—Of course the Bible might head the list. Whether or not there be a large “family” Bible, there should be at least a text of convenient size and form for everyday use. This book should contain a good concordance.
Then there should come into the home a first-class weekly newspaper; possibly the local paper will supply this need. Many farm homes now receive a daily paper regularly.
In addition there should be available a weekly or monthly summary of the current events of the nation and the world. The Literary Digest, the World’s Work, and the Review of Reviews are examples of standard magazines of this particular class. Either one of them will stimulate most helpfully the quiet thought of the farmer and the members of his family and keep one in touch with the most important movements of the country.
Along with the foregoing, there should be kept constantly at hand a first-class farm magazine. There are numberless periodicals of this sort, but perhaps among those of the first rank and those which especially give definite helps for the boy-and-girl life of the farm may be mentioned Wallaces’ Farmer, Des Moines, Iowa, the Farmer’s Voice, Chicago, Illinois, and the Farmer’s Guide, Huntington, Indiana. Also, the semi-official state paper well known in many of the commonwealths is usually very helpful.
Look out for trash. There are many papers published, ostensibly in the interest of farm life, which are in fact cheap and trashy sheets made use of almost wholly as a medium of advertising quack medicines, get-rich-quick schemes, and other frauds. A reliable means of testing the value of any one of these so-called “farm” or “home” papers is to examine the advertisements. If there be any considerable number of advertisements which offer sure cures for chronic diseases, confidential treatments for secret troubles, fortune telling, and attractive high-priced articles at a trifling cost, then the whole thing is probably fraudulent and not worthy to come into your home. Also avoid the paper or magazine which advertises intoxicating liquors. It is very low in moral tone, to say the least.
2. Books for children.—In selecting a list of books for farm boys and girls, we should make little or no distinction between them and the children of the city homes. Their earlier literary needs are practically all alike and their youthful minds must be nourished in about the same fashion. In offering the lists to follow we do not pretend to have selected nearly all the profitable books available, but rather to have named a few examples of volumes already found enticing and helpful to the young mind. The majority of them are standard and well known. While the price and publisher are given in many instances, often a cheaper edition may be had.
In order to proceed with greater certainty and economy in purchasing books for the children, the rural parent is advised to consult some one near at hand who is thoroughly familiar with children’s literature. Perhaps the superintendent of schools of the town near by, or some local minister, or some well-informed leader of a mothers’ club, may furnish the desired assistance. It would also be helpful to write for the general catalogues of a number of the large publishing and distributing houses and from their lists select a number of suitable titles. Many of them publish the older classics in very attractive form for ten to twenty-five cents, the original unchanged and unabridged.