The World's Best Books : A Key to the Treasures of Literature Part 18

The story of the Nurnburg Stove, from Ouida's "Bimbi."

The story of Robert Bruce.

The story of Circe's Palace, from "Tanglewood Tales."

The story of Pandora's Box, from the "Wonder Book."

The story of Little Nell, from "The Old Curiosity Shop."

The story of the Boy in "Vanity Fair."

Many other books might be placed on the list of parent-helpers.

Indeed, the perfect guidance of youth would require a perfect knowledge of literature throughout its breadth and depth; but the above suggestions, if followed in any large degree, will result in a far better training than most children now receive.

THE FORMATION OF A GOOD READING HABIT.

As the child learns to read by itself, the books from which were drawn the stones it has heard may be given to it, care being taken that every gift shall be adapted to the ability of the little one. The fact that the boy has heard the story of Horatius at the Bridge does not diminish, but vastly increases, his desire to read the "Lays of Ancient Rome."

When he comes to the possession of the book, it seems to him like a discovery of the face of a dear friend with whose voice he has long been familiar. I well remember with what delight I adopted the "Sketch Book"

as one of my favorites on finding Rip Van Winkle in it.

Below will be found a list of books intended as a suggestion of what should be given to children of various ages. The larger the number of good books the child can be induced to read each year, the better of course, so long as his powers are not overtaxed, and the reading is done with due thoroughness. But if only four or five are selected from each year's list, the boy will know more of standard literature by the time he is sixteen, than most of his elders do. Each book enters the list at the earliest age an ordinary child would be able to read it with ease, and it may be used then or at any subsequent age; for no books are mentioned which are not of everlasting interest and profit to childhood, manhood, and age. Many of the volumes named below may also be used by parents and teachers as story-mines. There is no sharp line between the periods of story-telling and of reading. Most children read simple English readily at eight or ten years of age; many do a large amount of reading long before that, and nearly all do some individual work in the earlier period. The change should be gradual. For the stimulus that comparison gives, story-telling and reading aloud should be continued long after the child is able to read alone; in truth, it ought never to cease. Story-telling ought to be a universal practice. Stories should be told to and _by_ everybody. One of the best things grown folks can do is to tell each other the substance of their experience from day to day; and probably no finer means of education exists than to have the children give an account at supper or in the hour or two following, of what they have seen, heard, read, thought, and felt during the day. In the same way reading _solus_ should lap over into the early period as far as possible. One of the greatest needs of the day is a cla.s.s of books that shall put _solid sense_ into _very_ simple words. A child can grasp the wonderful, strong, loving, pathetic, and even the humorous and critical, long before it can overcome the mechanical difficulties of reading. By so much as we diminish these, we push education nearer to the cradle. Charles Dudley Warner says, "As a general thing, I do not believe in books written for children;" and Phillips Brooks, Marietta Holley, Brooke Herford, and others express a similar feeling. But the trouble is not with the _plan_ of writing for children, but with the execution. If the highest _thoughts_ and feelings were written in the simplest words,--written as a wise parent _tells_ them to his little ones,--then we should have a juvenile literature that could be recommended. As it is, most writers for babies seem to have far less sense than the babies. Their books are filled with unnatural, make-believe emotions, and egregious nonsense in the place of ideas. The best prose for young people will be found in the works of Hawthorne, Curtis, Warner, Holmes, Irving, Addison, Goldsmith, Burroughs, and Poe; and the best poets for them are Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Burns, and Homer. Books that flavor sense with fun, as do those of Curtis, Holmes, Lowell, Holley, Stowe, Irving, Goldsmith, Warner, Addison, and Burroughs, are among the best means of creating in any heart, young or old, a love for fine, pure writing. P. T. Barnum, a man whose great success is largely due to his attainment of that serenity of mind which Lowell calls the highest result of culture, says: "I should, above almost everything else, try to cultivate in the child a kindly sense of humor. Wherever a pure, hearty laugh rings through literature, he should be permitted and taught to enjoy it." This judgment comes from a knowledge of the sustaining power a love of humor gives a man immersed in mental cares and worriments. Lincoln is, perhaps, the best example of its power.

It is often an inspiration to a boy to know that a book he is reading has helped and been beloved by some one whose name is to him a synonym of greatness,--to know, for example, that Franklin got his style from the "Spectator," which he studied diligently when a boy; that Francis Parkman from fifteen to twenty-one obtained more pleasure and profit from Scott than from any other writer; that Darwin was very fond of Mark Twain's "Treatise on the Frog;" that Marietta Holley places Emerson, Tennyson, and Eliot next to the Bible in her list of favorites; that Senator h.o.a.r writes Emerson, Wordsworth, and Scott next after the Bible and Shakspeare; that Robert Collyer took great delight in Irving's "Sketch Book," when a youth; that the great historian Lecky is said to be in the habit of taking Irving with him when he goes to bed; that Phillips Brooks read Jonson many times when a boy, and that Lockhart's Scott was a great favorite with him, though the Doctor attaches no special significance to either of these facts; that Susan Coolidge thinks "Hans Brinker" is the best of all American books for children, etc. Similar facts may be found in relation to very many of the best books, and will aid much in arousing an interest in them.

Plato, Bacon, Goethe, Spencer, Emerson, and many others of the best are for the most part too difficult to be properly grasped until the mind is more mature than it usually is at sixteen. No precise rules, however, can be laid down on this subject, I have known a boy read Spencer's "First Principles" and Goethe's "Faust" and "Wilhelm Meister" at sixteen, and gain a mastery of them. All I have attempted to do is to make broad suggestions; experiment in each case must do the rest.

_Literature adapted to a Child Six or Eight Years of Age and upward._

Little Lord Fauntleroy. A book that cannot fail to delight and improve every reader.

King of the Golden River, Ruskin.

"Rosebud," from "Harvard Soph.o.m.ore Stories."

Christmas all the Year round, Howells.

Mrs. Stowe's "Laughin' in Meetin'." An exceedingly funny story.

"Each and All" and "Seven Little Sisters," by Jane Andrews.

Used in the Boston Public Schools as supplementary reading.

Cla.s.sics in Babyland, Bates.

Scudder's "Fables and Folk Stories." Fine books for little ones.

aesop.

Rainbows for Children, Lydia Maria Child.

Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell. The autobiography of a splendid horse, and the best teacher of kindness to animals we know of.

Burroughs' "Birds and Bees." In fact, all his beautiful and simple stories of Nature--"Pepacton," "Fresh Fields," "Wake Robin," "Winter Suns.h.i.+ne," "Signs and Seasons," etc.--are the delight of children as soon as they can read.

Winslow's "Fairy Geography."

By Sea-side and Wayside, Wright.

_Literature adapted to a Child Eight to Nine Years of Age and upward._

Sandford and Merton, Day. One of the very best of children's books.

Play Days, Sarah Orne Jewett.

Andersen's "Fairy Tales." Cannot be too highly praised.

Stories from King Arthur, Hanson. A good foundation for the study of Malory, Tennyson, etc.

"Winners in Life's Race," and "Life and her Children," by Miss Arabella Buckley. Books that charm many children of eight or nine.

Fairy Frisket; or, Peeps at Insect Life. Nelson & Sons.

Physiology, with pictures.

Queer Little People, Mrs. Stowe.

Kingsley's "Water Babies." A beautiful book, as indeed are all of Kingsley's.

Longfellow's "Building of the s.h.i.+p."

The Fountain, Lowell.

Ye Mariners of England, Campbell.

Carleton's "Farm Ballads and Farm Legends." Humorous, pathetic, sensible.

_Literature adapted to a Child Nine to Ten Years of Age and upward._

Story of a Bad Boy, Aldrich. A splendid book for boys.

Boys of '76, Coffin. An eight-year-old boy read it five times, he was so pleased with it.

New Year's Bargain, Coolidge.

p.u.s.s.y Willow, Stowe.