Children's Books

Hen our older people were children, there was no juvenile literature. If the book appetite arose, they were fed on a slice of Wilberforce’s “Practical View of Christianity,” or little tidbits from “Edwards on the Affections,” or were given a few nuts to crack from Chalmers’s “Astronomical Discourses.” Their fathers and mothers sighed lest these little ones should turn out badly, because they liked ginger-snaps better than Westminster Assemblies, and would spend their money for marbles when it ought to have gone toward furnishing red flannel shirts for the poor heathen children in Kamtchatka. You have lost all faith in John Bunyan’s veracity, and whistled Incredulously when you came to that story about Apollyon. Pictures were scarce, and a book was considered profusely adorned diat had at die beginning a sketch of the author in gown and bands, and long hair of powdered whiteness, and at the close in ornate letters the word Finis, which you were told meant The End, although, after wearily reading it through, you did not know whether it was the end of the book or the end of you. You might as well feed your baby on lobstersalad as at that early age to have been expected to digest the books that were set before you.

But now the children’s library is filled with books of large type, and tasteful vignettes, and lids ridged, and flowered, and scrolled, and columned, and starred with all the fascinations of the book -bindery. There is now danger that what is called the “milk for babes” shall become nothing but chalk and water. Many of the Sabbath schools are doine much to foster a taste for trashy literature. In some of these libraries you will find sentimental loveyarns; biographies of generals who were very brave, and good examples in some respects — when they were sober; fairy stories, in which the fairies had very loose morals; accounts of boys and girls who never lived — books in which there is no more religion than in “Don Quixote” or “Gulliver’s Travels.” We have been wondering why some religious society did not publish a nice little edition of “Baron Munchausen,” with a moral at the end, showing our dear little people the danger of tying one’s horse to the top of a church-steeple. On Sunday night your child does not want to go to bed. He cries when compelled to go, and looks under the bed for some of the religious hobgoblins that come out of the Sunday-school library. Religious spooks are just as bad as any other spooks. A child is just as afraid of Floras, Pomonas, sylphs, oreads, and fairies, as of ghosts. The poor little darling in the blue sack goes home with a book, thinking she has heaven under her arm, and, before she gets through reading the story of love and adventure, feels so strange that she thinks she must be getting lots of religion.

In the choice of our children’s books, let us not mistake slops for simplicity, nor insult our children’s tastes by disquisitions about “footsytootsies,” or keep informing them of the historical fact, which they learned a great while ago, that “Mary had a little lamb,” or assemble the youngsters in coroner’s jury to clear up the mystery as to “who killed cock-robin.” If a child has no common sense at seven years of aee, it never will have.

Have at least one book in your library in which all the good children did not die. My early impression from Sunday - school books was that religion was very unhealthy. It seemed a terrible distemper that killed every boy and girl that it touched. If I found myself some day better than common, I corrected the mistake for fear I should die; although it was the general opinion that I was not in much danger from over-sanctity. But I do believe that children may have religion and yet live through it. A strong mustard -plaster and a teaspoonful of ipecac will do marvels. Timothy lived to grow up, and we are credibly informed that little Samuel woke. Indeed, the best boys I ever saw, occasionally upset things and got boisterous, and had the fidgets. The goody-goody kind of children make namby-pamby men. I should not be surprised to find that a colt which does not frisk becomes a horse that will not draw. It is not religion that makes that boy sit by the stove while his brothers are out snow-balling, but the “dumps.” The boy who has no fire in his nature may, after he has grown up, have animation enough to grease a wagon-wheel, but he will not own the wagon nor have money enough to buy the grease. The best boy I ever knew, before he went to heaven, could strike a ball till it soared out of sight, and, in the race, as far as you could see, you would find his red tippet coming out ahead. Look out for the boy who never has the finoers of a orood lauor-h tickle him under the diaphragm. The most solemn-looking mule on our place has kicked to pieces five dash-boards.

There are parents who notice that their daughter is growing pale and sick, and therefore think she must be destined to marry a missionary, and go to Borneo, although the only recommendation she has for that position is that she will never be any temptation to the cannibals, who, while very fond of cold missionary, are averse to diseased meat; or, finding their son looking cadaverous, think he is either going to die, or become a minister, considering that there is great power of consecration in liver complaint, and thinking him doubly set apart, who, while presbytery are laying their hands on his head, has dyspepsia laying its hand on his stomach.

Oh! for a relio-ious literature that shall take for its model of excellence a boy that loves God, and can digest his dinner in two hours after he eats it! Be not afraid to say, in your account of his decease, that the day before you lost him he caught two rabbits in his trap down on the meadow, or soundly thrashed a streetruffian who was trying to upset a little girl’s basket of cold victuals. I do not think that heaven is so near to an ill - ventilated nursery as to a good gymnasium. If the church of God could trade off three thousand hogsheads of relieious cant for three thousand hoorsheads of fresh air and stout health, lue should be the eainers, but the fellow with whom we traded would be cheated mercilessly and for even