PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 85

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

■ « —^ ■ " HOW TO INTEREST OUR CHIL- ; DREX IN GOOD LITERATURE." In tihe Parents' Review for last Octot J ber there-is a refy good article on ," How s pscr TtitereSt ■ Our -Cmldren. in "Good"Liceca- [ tuTe." Th«-. article is a long on«. and ! [ from it l^sonie tObntha- ago took a Series j~ oT -eKferaets^ ahdv filled' ip i oonnecftog ler j marks- siffficientily full" fotf my readers to : I uiKf'&r I ?taE<d' tfte full scop's of ibs- article. r [ One subject and another,," however, cam© [ 1 up, and I have not been abb to get the i matter into print. Juet as well, perhaps, | for, as a Chat, the "article ma\> be vegarded as a fititojg conclusion io what i niight ba called the &£J?ks of seveni literary. Chats just concluded. "" . After a* g*n«ra>l inlixiductfon the writer , says that the first "step to secure a love for good literature we mast begin with , the v«.ry first reading lessons. And with ' * this I agree, but we must havl teachers [ trained on different lines from those in vogue at present if we wish to carry out i ' , the writer's ideas. The writer then goes ■ s- op to "say : ' ' - • I ! Two Very important factors ir deciding ' 1 w.herher a child shall connect the idea of j } roaming with— pleasant oi unpleasant emo- I , tions arc. firstly, the age ut which these | first reading lessons should -begin, and, | E secondly, the manner iv which they should | 5 bo given. I r-emember a time when it was I considered •disgraceful not to-be able to read at five- years old, and my own humiUaE tion at being gwen a box of letters on my J ,* fifth birthday as a gentle- remund-s-i of my i I ignorance is still present to me. Many . parents who arc ambitious for their o'.iil- : L dron— especially for their eldest children — , often worry unnecessarily about this point. ! I They s^em to think that the power to road ! is a .criterion of -intellectual "oapacitj, for- | ■ getting tK:itr knowledge ha 3 a hundred ways 1 . of entering 1 the child's, mind; and while , tils wonderful scroll of Xa'ture is still fresh . to its eyes arid ears and bauds, tacb. know-. ' : lodge as can be obtained from books suifc- \ ' able to its capacity is^of secondary account. \ - The power io read is largely mechanical, «ukH have known chiklren of ""very -mediocre j capacity leara to read .-much more quickly - than others whose brain power was indubitably stronger. Genor.ally speaking, chil-ch'-en who b->gin to learn at six years old' can read fairly well at seven, though the . daily reading lesson is still necessary to ensure fluency and expressiveness. If you try to force a o'lild of five, as so many'pedole do, to a task^ for whic.hi he. ,is not ready; i ' you are making an unpleasant impression , ! on the little mind, and causing it to associ- . . ate reading with reluctance and distaste. i Of courise you cannot lay - dowji a law. for . .', all. .children— l am- «peaki«g the /ior- r , i! mal child, but we all know little prodigies r ' of four or so who have taught themselves ■ ' reading with scarcely any assistance. I The lecturer, C. L. Thomson, joint ! principal pi the Kensington Gardens , School, and a writer of school books, does,} , I not recommend any particular way of i J teaching '-eaddng, but speaks most emj phatically against parents working oil : ' lines different from their children's , teachers. When, however, he mechani- | cal part of reading has been- mastered j there follows the reading for the sake of the information to-be gained from the J symbol?, for it is quite possible for' a doll child to read paragraph aftea- paraI graph quite correctly aj*d not take in the J sexit'-e. We in Otago know this, of i course, and in our schools o\ercome this to', some extent by calling on .sbildxen hsra and there to give the sense of what S hjs be«n read. j The writer then takes up tlte subject I matter of reading books, and makes the ! 1 first desideratum to be simplicity and) ; 1 urderscajidablene^s. " Not lcaig ago," she j say.;. "it wa« considered that a good • j reading book must convey information of , • poire kind, off-en of the most scrappy ', description, similar to the ' Interesting I Iten-j ' of the daily papers " : and con- ' timie_>: "I think n.cst psopla are now ■ agreed th.3t such items .must be taught , through the rejfular lessons of history, i j botany, geography.' aK(^ 8° on » a ?^ °V- . . the child's own expc-.w'ence of life." _The ■, fir.t-.t aim. of the readiinjj book • iiust- be. ' literary, and ths suoject-matter must be | literature. >fi-=s Thoin.<-on thinks that the history of the d"evf!opirent ol the race a^'its us in understanding the developI ment of the child, and so re^on' that : the very stories which nursed the infancy of the race are the moSt suitable for the ' child — the rnvth? of Grcere. the wild fairy tales of the Teuton, the nystorious legends ', of th-s Celt. It i? now possible to obtain > [ carefully-graduted readers, in which all ' ' tho«e subjects arc drawn oh ; and how much ( I superior -they arc to- the 'ancient -fables -of- i the punishment that befell Harry for antf- l ling with a crooked pin, and the terrible ' fate of the naughty fechoolboy who kept ' I all his plum cake for himself. | I The. best of it is that most of these siories t ; convey a moral without obtruding it ; ike I j boauty of the idea sinks into tha mind of j tho child, and makes him so familiar with moral loneliness that in later years- he will turn instinctively to them. What can be I more moralising than the story* of Beauty and the Bea3t, which teachss the leeeon of not judging fro:ri appearaross. or of the ' Sleeping Beauty, which insists that all diffi-

oulties may be overcome by him who' has courage to face them ; or of Midas, with Us lesson against greed? And many otherf might be mentioned. Still, a word of warning is ncessary about the selection and editing of fairy and folk tales for iittle children. Horrible and djsjrusting details must b© omitted, and I ho, not thiri tfcafc I should mys?lf r-a-ecnimend suc'i a story Bluebeard for nursarj consumption. And the Oriental fairy talc so long popular, in which virtue is rewarded with jewels and gold and other prizes of the kind, is calculated to teach children a wrong motive for being good, and also to enhance