BOOKS AND THE CHILD.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1379, 4 March 1912, Page 2

BOOKS AND THE CHILD.

Miss C. L. Thomson lins republished villi llessrs. Horace Marshall ami Son two lectures delivered in Die London University on "The Teaching of English." They are. bath informing ami suggestive, ami mny bci road with particular interest .by parents of the middle classes who are more and more concerned with their children's characters and with the increasing attempts of teachers lo influence these. The teachers do not encourage, the parents to leave all to them. Responsibility comes into existence when it is .perceived, and the mother may learn with consternation that the teaching of literature begins when she sings n lullaby. It is almost a necessary qualification of a teaches- that she. should be able to' tell a tale property; we .may soon have nur.ses selected not' more for their acquaintance with the possibilities of llumiol vests than for the ability to take up an uilvisorv position toward the art of tho toy theatre. Our little ones are to be trained in sensitiveness nntl discrimination, and our faith in the natural child must still some faint, apprehensions of softness and conformity. Miss Thomson would limit the reading of children to books written in good style, and that this is a serious limitation appears from what she says about tho "turgid and bombastic" Cooper. Hut sages and "Morle d'Arthnrs" and 'Taerio (Jueenes" cannot take tho place- of "The Last of the Mohicans" and "Tho Pathfinder," and if these are to go they must bo replaced by books of adventure— "JJevis" is one of the few first-ra to examples—in which boys can see themselves. Miss Thomson would keep "BlupIcard" from young children, and her general approval or even enthusiasm lor tho Scottish ballads does not inform us whether "The Twa Corbies'' fur instance, would bo permitted. Children may get the. horrors through injudicious bundling, but they are very different from one another, and do not all require the same imaginative fare. It is the duty of parents and teachers to distinguish, and general rules must yield to distinction?, \\c may all chime in agreement that ug y and ferrifving things.should hi kept from children, and yet, unless we aro to throw over a "roat deal of literature and history, terror must find its way into their imaginations. -Miss Thomson has a wise plea fur differences; and wo may strongly agree, for instance, that children should not be all brouffht up on two or three anthologies. The problem, as it, has been said, is not to educate children but a child.—"MauchesliT Guardian."