Books and Reading for the Young: A Reprint from a State Report (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Books and Reading for the Young: A Reprint From a State Report

The public school teaches its children to read. It Opens to them a world of vast and varied literature. There are good books, good magazines and good papers, and there are bad books, bad maga zines and bad papers. While the printing press is thus a great engine of civilization, it is at the same time a great instrumentality for evil. As there is no better way to protect a child from evil than to make him a lover of good literature, so there is no surer way to corrupt him than by bringing him in contact with bad literature. The public school teaches the child to read, but it does not teach him what to read or how to read. It gives him the ability to interpret the printed page, but it fails in a great measure to cultivate in him a taste for that which is pure, elevating and instructive. It must not be forgotten that by giving the child the ability to read, we put it in his power to read the worst kind of books, and that, if left to himself, he will be quite as likely to take poisonous mental food as to take wholesome mental food. Indeed I think that, in view of the attractive garb in which vicious literature is clothed, he will be more likely to read to his injury than to his profit. The person, then, who teaches children to read and fails to cultivate in them a taste for good literature, puts an instrument into their hands which may possibly be used by them to their own destruction.

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