CHAPTER VI
_JUVENILE LITERATURE IN THE FARM HOME_
It may be truly said that the strength and impressiveness of the personality depend on the nature of the inner thought of the individual. Now, thoughts are not unlike the trees and the growing grain, or, for that matter, any other living thing; unless they have proper nourishment they wither, perish, or dwindle away to a puny shadow of their possible selves. How shall we measure the strength and force of the human character other than by the bigness and the purity of the daily thoughts of the individual? It matters little what the occupation may be--a hewer of stone, a hauler of wood, a captain of industry, or a governor of a state--each of these may be mean and little in his respective position provided his thoughts be sensuous and groveling. On the other hand, each of these can shine in his allotted place in a light all his own, provided he have the habit of entertaining clean and inspiring ideas in his secret consciousness.
Now, one of the larger problems of the rural life is that of supplying the many hours necessarily devoted to silent reflection with a suitable form of thought culture. Proverbially, the farmer and his wife and their children are hurried along with the work-a-day affairs and tend gradually to acquire the non-reading habit. This is bad for the parents in that it keeps their minds running around upon a little cycle of hard, industrial facts. It is worse for the children in that it fails to supply the proper nourishment for the dream period through which their lives are necessarily passing. What can be done, therefore, to nourish and build up the best possible thought activities, especially in case of the rural boys and girls?
HOW GOOD THINKING GROWS UP AND FLOURISHES
It may not be out of place to show here somewhat more definitely how attractive forms of literature gradually work themselves into the lives of the young. In the first place, the young person cannot invent his own ideas. He does not manufacture his thoughts out of something latent within his organism. The latent situation consists merely of a nervous system prepared to receive manifold impressions and to retain them and give them back through the process of ideation. That is, the young person thinks only about things that have actually happened in his life. All he knows has come to him through the avenue of his senses; what he has seen and heard and felt, and so on, constitutes the "stuff" out of which his thoughts are made. So he must have the widest possible experience, while young, in the use of his natural senses.
The literature best adapted to the child would be that which appeals to the interests predominating in his life at any given time. During his early years not hard, prosaic facts, but situations that stretch the truth and sport with the fixed condition of things are especially appealing to him. He should therefore be indulged in the classic myths, fables, fairy tales, and the like. The parent will of course be on guard against his acquiring any seriously erroneous beliefs in respect to such things, and also against his receiving any serious shock or fright from the tragic aspects of the tale. Later on, during the early teens, the boys and girls will become more and more interested in the stories of the wars of old and in the fact and romance of history. Stories supplementing the text-book history of the home country may now be introduced.
As a possible means of bringing the minds of the boys and girls into a more intimate knowledge of the rural situation, nature studies and nature stories should be offered. It must be remembered that it is quite possible for the boy to grow up within a stone's throw of many of the living things of nature and yet scarcely recognize their presence, much less know anything definite about them. Therefore, nature-study books and leaflets written perhaps in story form and containing attractive illustrations of the birds, bees, flowers, and trees to be found near about the rural home will prove most interesting and instructive to the young. Through such helpful literature the mind will gradually acquire the habit of casting about in the home environment for the description of possible objects and conditions new to one.
One of the best and most helpful results accruing to the young person who indulges the habit of reading good literature is this: he acquires a large vocabulary of words and phrases in which to clothe his secret thought and with which to express himself to others. All this furnishes, not merely a splendid form of entertainment for the silent reflections, but it also gives the thinker a sense of the power and the worth of his own personality.
TYPES OF LITERATURE
It may be stated as a foregone conclusion that no farm is well equipped for the happiness and well-being of those who dwell thereon unless there be an ample supply of good literature in the house. No matter how well stocked with high-grade farm animals, how productive in point of farm crops, how well kept the hedges and lanes may be, secret poverty and littleness of mind lurk in that home if the literature is wanting. So, first of all, let us lay the foundation by means of enumerating some periodicals and books of a more general nature.
1. _The best reading._--Of course the Bible might head the list. Whether or not there be a large "family" Bible, there should be at least a text of convenient size and form for everyday use. This book should contain a good concordance.
Then there should come into the home a first-class weekly newspaper; possibly the local paper will supply this need. Many farm homes now receive a daily paper regularly.
In addition there should be available a weekly or monthly summary of the current events of the nation and the world. The _Literary Digest_, the _World's Work_, and the _Review of Reviews_ are examples of standard magazines of this particular class. Either one of them will stimulate most helpfully the quiet thought of the farmer and the members of his family and keep one in touch with the most important movements of the country.
Along with the foregoing, there should be kept constantly at hand a first-class farm magazine. There are numberless periodicals of this sort, but perhaps among those of the first rank and those which especially give definite helps for the boy-and-girl life of the farm may be mentioned _Wallaces' Farmer_, Des Moines, Iowa, the _Farmer's Voice_, Chicago, Illinois, and the _Farmer's Guide_, Huntington, Indiana. Also, the semi-official state paper well known in many of the commonwealths is usually very helpful.
Look out for trash. There are many papers published, ostensibly in the interest of farm life, which are in fact cheap and trashy sheets made use of almost wholly as a medium of advertising quack medicines, get-rich-quick schemes, and other frauds. A reliable means of testing the value of any one of these so-called "farm" or "home" papers is to examine the advertisements. If there be any considerable number of advertisements which offer sure cures for chronic diseases, confidential treatments for secret troubles, fortune telling, and attractive high-priced articles at a trifling cost, then the whole thing is probably fraudulent and not worthy to come into your home. Also avoid the paper or magazine which advertises intoxicating liquors. It is very low in moral tone, to say the least.
2. _Books for children._--In selecting a list of books for farm boys and girls, we should make little or no distinction between them and the children of the city homes. Their earlier literary needs are practically all alike and their youthful minds must be nourished in about the same fashion. In offering the lists to follow we do not pretend to have selected nearly all the profitable books available, but rather to have named a few examples of volumes already found enticing and helpful to the young mind. The majority of them are standard and well known. While the price and publisher are given in many instances, often a cheaper edition may be had.
In order to proceed with greater certainty and economy in purchasing books for the children, the rural parent is advised to consult some one near at hand who is thoroughly familiar with children's literature. Perhaps the superintendent of schools of the town near by, or some local minister, or some well-informed leader of a mothers' club, may furnish the desired assistance. It would also be helpful to write for the general catalogues of a number of the large publishing and distributing houses and from their lists select a number of suitable titles. Many of them publish the older classics in very attractive form for ten to twenty-five cents, the original unchanged and unabridged.
In order to stimulate interest in forming the nucleus of a home library the farmer should either make or purchase a small set of book shelves. Important as it may seem to build a first-class house for the thoroughbred hogs, this matter of the children's reading is even more important and should be attended to first, before it becomes too late to catch the attentive ear of the boys and girls.
A SELECTED LIST
The following lists are taken chiefly from those selected by such well-known critics as Mary Mapes Dodge, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Hamilton W. Mabie.
_Ages Four to Six Years_
VARIOUS AUTHORS. Boston Collection of Kindergarten Stories. J. L. Hammett Company, Boston. 50 cents.
BRYANT. Stories to Tell to Children. Houghton, Mifflin Company.
HOLBROOK. Hiawatha Primer. 50 cents. Houghton, Mifflin Company.
EGGLESTON. Story of Great America for Little Americans. 35 cents. Houghton, Mifflin Company.
SCUDDER. Fables and Folk Stories.
STEVENSON. A Child's Garden of Verses.
LANG. Blue Fairy Book.
RUSKIN. King of the Golden River.
FIELD. Lullaby Land.
WIGGIN. The Story Hour.
SEWELL. Black Beauty.
_Ages Six to Seven Years_
NORTON AND STEPHENS. The Heart of Oak Books, No. 1. 25 cents. Heath.
GILBERT. Mother Goose.
CARROLL (CHARLES L. DODGSON). Alice in Wonderland. $3. Harper. 35 cents. Crowell.
ANDREWS. The Seven Little Sisters. 60 cents. Ginn.
KINGSLEY. Water Babies.
KIPLING. The Jungle Book.
GREENE. King Arthur and his Court.
_Ages Seven to Eight Years_
GRIMM. Fairy Tales. Translated Mrs. E. Lucas. $2.50. Lippincott.
GOLDSMITH. Goody Two-Shoes. 25 cents. Heath
ÆSOP. Fables. Selected by Jacobs. $1.50. Macmillan.
HARRIS. Nights with Uncle Remus. $1.50. Houghton, Mifflin.
BIBLE STORIES. 60 cents. A. L. Burt Company, New York.
HAWTHORNE. Wonderbook and Tanglewood Tales.
IRVING. Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or The Sketch Book.
_Ages Eight to Nine Years_
BALDWIN. Fifty Famous Stories Retold. 35 cents. American Book Company.
LONGFELLOW. Hiawatha, The Village Blacksmith, The Children's Hour, etc.
MABIE. Norse Stories Retold from Edda. $1.80. Dodd, Mead.
MILLER. Out-of-Door Diary for Boys and Girls. Sturgis-Walton Company.
_Ages Nine to Ten Years_
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 4. 45 cents. Heath.
HODGES. The Garden of Eden. (Bible Stories.) $1.50. Houghton, Mifflin.
MATHEWS. Familiar Trees and Their Leaves. $1.75. Appleton.
BURROUGHS. Wake Robin.
_Ages Ten to Eleven Years_
HIGGINSON. Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic.
DANA. How to know the Wild Flowers. $2. Scribner.
BLANCHAN. Bird Neighbors. 35 cents. Doubleday, Page.
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 5. 50 cents. Heath.
CHURCH. Stories from Virgil.
MORLEY. A Song of Life.
STEVENSON. Treasure Island.
_Ages Eleven to Twelve Years_
ALCOTT. Little Women. $1.50. Little Men. $1.50. Little, Brown & Co.
LUCAS. A Wanderer in London. $1.75. Macmillan.
ALDRICH. Story of a Bad Boy. $1.25. Houghton, Mifflin.
SHAKESPEARE. The Tempest.
SCOTT. Tales of a Grandfather. The Talisman.
EDGEWORTH. Parent's Assistant.
_Ages Twelve to Thirteen Years_
KIPLING. Just So Stories. $1.20. Doubleday, Page.
SETON-THOMPSON. Wild Animals I have Known. $2. Scribner.
WYSS. Swiss Family Robinson. 60 cents. McKay; also Dutton.
PALMER. The Odyssey. $1. Houghton, Mifflin.
GOLDSMITH. The Vicar of Wakefield.
DICKENS. A Christmas Carol. The Cricket on the Hearth.
HUGHES. Tom Brown at Rugby.
_Ages Thirteen to Fourteen Years_
SWIFT. Gulliver's Travels. $1.50. Macmillan.
LONGFELLOW. Evangeline.
DANA. Two Years before the Mast. $1. Houghton, Mifflin.
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 6. 55 cents. Heath.
LAMB. Tales from Shakespeare.
COFFIN. Old Times in the Colonies.
FRANKLIN. Autobiography.
STOWE. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
_Ages Fourteen to Fifteen Years_
DEFOE. Robinson Crusoe. $1. McLoughlin. $1.50. Harper.
BUNYAN. Pilgrim's Progress.
NORTON AND STEPHENS. Heart of Oak Books, No. 7. 60 cents. Heath.
AUSTEN. Pride and Prejudice.
THOREAU. Walden.
_Ages Fifteen to Sixteen Years_
COOPER. Leather Stocking Tales.
BURROUGHS. Birds and Bees. 15 cents. Strawbridge and Clothier.
PYLE. Robin Hood. 60 cents. Scribner.
SCOTT. Ivanhoe. 60 cents. Appleton. Lady of the Lake. 35 cents.
GINN. Lay of the Last Minstrel. 25 cents. Macmillan.
_Sixteen Years Old and Older_
IRVING. The Alhambra. 25 cents. Macmillan.
MACAULAY. Lays of Ancient Rome. 75 cents. Macmillan.
KIPLING. Captains Courageous. $1.50. Century.
NICOLAY AND HAY. Boy's Life of Lincoln. $1.50. Century.
EGGLESTON. Hoosier School Boy. $1. Scribner; also Heath.
In addition to the foregoing, there is beginning to come from the press a mass of juvenile literature that promises to furnish most practical inspiration and guidance to the juvenile mind on the farm. Much of this new rural life literature may be had for the asking or for the mere price of publication. The following are recommended:--
_The Rural School Leaflet._ Edited by Alice G. McCloskey, and issued under the general direction of L. H. Bailey at Ithaca, N.Y.
The Country Life Publications, issued by D. W. Working, Superintendent of Agricultural Extension, Morgantown, W.Va.
The series published by A. B. Graham, Superintendent of the Extension Department, Ohio University, Columbus.
The annual reports of County Superintendent O. J. Kern, Rockford, Ill., and of County Superintendent George W. Brown, Paris, Ill.
The Wisconsin Arbor and Bird Day Annual, issued by State Superintendent C. P. Cary, Madison, Wis.
The Extension Departments of many of the state universities and nearly all of the state agricultural colleges are now issuing a series of small pamphlets on such matters as stock judging, grain breeding, soil testing, and home economics. This literature should be given the widest possible circulation in the country home, as it will prove helpful both to the young and to the parents in their direction of the young.
_Literature on Child-rearing_
Parents who are seriously in earnest in the matter of developing the lives of their children will find great assistance and much inspiration through the reading of books and magazines on the child-rearing problems. In fact, it may be put down as a practical certainty that the work of child training cannot go on effectively and continue in its interest except one have some aids of the kind just named. Therefore, the interested parent should cast about for the books and magazines that promise to serve in the solution of the particular problems at hand. It happens that the author has collected a large number of books and periodicals of this class and that he has made a somewhat critical examination of them.
In listing the titles below, a word or phrase is used to indicate the contents or purpose of the text.
1. Periodicals on Child-rearing
_The American Baby._ American Publishing Company, 1 Madison Ave., New York City. $1 per year, 10 cents per copy. Contains much detailed and most helpful instruction on the care of the child.
_American Motherhood._ Coopertown, N.Y. $1 per year, 10 cents per copy. Helpful and sympathetic. Especially strong in respect to health and sanitation and in methods of instructing children in regard to the secrets of life.
_The Child-Welfare Magazine._ Official organ of the National Congress of Mothers, 147 North 10th Street, Philadelphia. 50 cents per year, 10 cents per copy.
The educational pamphlets published by the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, 9 E 2d Street, New York City. Excellent monographs, each treating some urgent child problem in relation to morals, sanitation, and the like.
The Home-training Bulletins, prepared and issued by William A. McKeever, Professor of Philosophy, State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kan. 5 cents each. Each of these pamphlets contains about sixteen pages and covers a particular home-training problem. The numbers thus far issued are:--
1. The Cigarette Smoking Boy.
2. Teaching the Boy to Save.
3. Training the Girl to Help in the Home.
4. Assisting the Boy in the Choice of a Vocation.
5. A Better Crop of Boys and Girls.
6. Training the Boy to Work.
7. Teaching the Girl to Save.
8. Instructing the Young in Regard to Sex.
Others are in course of preparation.
2. Books on Child-rearing
HOLT. Care and Feeding of Children. $1 Appleton. Most helpful and practical.
CURLEY. Short Talks with Young Mothers. $1.50. Putnams. Helpful from the medical side.
HARRISON. A Study of Child Nature. $1. Chicago Kindergarten College. Excellent. A standard help.
ALLEN. Civics and Health. $1.25. Ginn & Co. Most helpful on the side of sanitation.
HALL. Youth. $1.50. Appleton. A great book on child study by one of the world's leading authorities.
KING. Psychology of Child Development. $1. University of Chicago Press. A Fundamental work for those who wish to make a scientific study of child life.
RITCHIE. A Primer of Sanitation. 60 cents. World Book Company. A clear, helpful presentation of the facts.
CHANCE. The Care of the Child. $1. Penn Publishing Company. Full of detailed information about infants, especially.
MANGOLD. Child Problems. $1.25. Macmillan. Presents the matter ably and in the light of the freshest information.
CALL. The Freedom of Life. $1. Little, Brown & Co. A great and inspiring book. Will give rest and poise to tired mothers.
GULICK. Mind and Work. $1. Doubleday, Page & Co. A companion book to the one above, only more suitable for the father.
SALEEBY. Parenthood and Race Culture. $2.50. Moffat, Yard & Co., New York. A remarkably instructive volume on race improvement.
REFERENCES
How to Direct Children's Reading. Mae E. Schreiber. Annual volume N.E.A., 1900, p. 637.
A Suggestive List for a Children's Library, 483 titles. Helen T. Kennedy. Democrat Printing Company. Minneapolis.
A Mother's List of Books for Children. Catherine W. Arnold. A. C. McClurg & Co.
Children's Rights. Kate Douglas Wiggin. Pages 69 ff. "What shall Children Read?" Houghton, Mifflin Company.
Fingerposts of Children's Reading. Walter Taylor Field. McClurg & Co. Gives extensive lists.
Books for Boys and Girls. Brooklyn Public Library, New York. A carefully selected list of 1700 titles, 200 of them being especially marked for their value.