WHAT A GIRL SHOULD READ.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 19 October 1907, Page 3

WHAT A GIRL SHOULD READ.

A correspondent of lite Sydney Morning llerald i» anxious to have a list of books "suitable for a girl of nineteen who wishes to improve her mind." It is not so easy a question to answer as it seems, for so much depends on tbe girl's education and what she has already read. But taking the average girl of nineteen for a guide, it is pretty safe to assume she has not read much beyond the current novel, and perhaps a law of tile standard authors.

"Keep the modern magazine and novel out of your girl's way," writes ltuskin, "turn her loose into the old library every wet day, and let her alone. She will iLud what is good for her." The advice is sound, but at it is not every household that possesses an old libranj into which a girl can be turned loose, is imperatife that parents should provide their girls with books which will not keep tliein from reading, but wean their tastes from the modern trash with which the world of books is deluged. There are certain books "u - liieh should be ready for every girl, and which form part of her education just as surely as the multiplication table; book's which not only give pleasure in their perusal, encourage the imagination, and stimulate reason. Aud such books are not found amongst the "dry" people only, but are the works of novelists and poets as much as of philosophers and historians.

As a girl naturally wants to be amused rather than instructed, it is a good tiling to let her read as many novels as pO"iM<—provided tney are the right kind of novels. She will learn more of human nature from one novel of Thackeray .Meredith, or Dickens than from a whole bookshelf in the circulating library it t were given the privilege of filling a bookcase for a girl of nineteen these are the liooks, or rather tint authors, I should choose. I should give her one or more books only by each author, just enough to stimulate the desire for more The four great novelists, Thackeray, Dickens, Scott and Meredith, should each be well represented, and in modern editions with large print. Many a fine book has been neglected on account of its bulky size and small print, for. in spite of all advice to the contrary, a eovcl' has a great deal to do with ail iiitrodiirtiuii to a new book. Jane Austen would be well represented on my shelf: (leorge Kliot by "The Mill 011 the Floss," and "Adalue llede." All Charlotte Bronte's books would find a place, and Mrs OaskeH's "Crnnford" anil "Wives and Daughters," with Hugh Thomson's ilustrations if possible. .Modern writers should lie represented by Anthony Hope, Xcil Munro, Barry. Kipling, and. of course, Stevenson. Kenneth riraham's charming "Golden Age' and "TJream Days' would both be there, and some of the American writers. So much for the "amusement" shelf. On tile "improving" list should be Slevenson again, with his "Yirginilms l'uerisijue. and "Across the Plains" and

"Tryvela with a Donkey." "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table" would b" tho best edition obtninnblc; niul so iM the 'Tssnya of Elia," "Seame and Lilies," Willmott's "Pleasures of Literature." and a selection uf Emerson's cssavs.

Jfshe had any taste at all for nature study, .she would be given "Birds and Poets,'' and "Fresh l'ehls" by John Burroughs, "Our Village,*' by ]\iiss Mit* ford. "Life in the Fields," by Richard Jeffries, and Donald Macl)onnld*3 "Oum Bough and Wattle Blossom." Books of travel and biography, and letters, should be there, carefully seTetlcd for :• • m:e lilerny value.

Tho poets would be widely rcpesentedfor poetry is perhaps the most essential factor in the culture of a giiT> mind. I wrmld have 'almost every poet on ilie shelf, so that she could browse in the Olvnipian fields and find for tho food most to hor taste. But the actual choice of the volumes for a, girl's rending must bo guided b\ !ifjr ta-le and intelligence.