he charge of illiteracy is
wholly unable to reproduce the author's thoughts by looking at the
printed page."

Children make their first acquaintance with books from the pictures.
They like plenty of them with bright colors and broad simple treatment
and prefer a rude sketch with action to the finest work of Walter
Crane or Kate Greenaway. Illustrations should help the child to
understand the story. Pictures of historic places and objects and
adequate reproductions of works of great artists are of value later,
for, while the aesthetic sense of the child may be cultivated by
surrounding him with the beautiful--flowers, pictures, books, a
recognition of the fact that the love of the artistic is of
comparatively late development, will prevent much discouragement.

The child learns from his reading what kind of a world he lives in,
through books he also becomes acquainted with himself and with his
tastes and abilities and sometimes he finds out from them what he is
fitted for in life. When carefully directed, reading may be made to
cultivate common sense, self-reliance, initiative, enthusiasm, and
ability to turn one's mental and physical capital to the best
advantage and to make the most of one's opportunities--qualities which
ensure success in life, and it also should cultivate the affections
and those kindly feelings which make the world a better place to live
in. Try to interest the child in books which give true and noble ideas
of life where wrong-doing brings its natural consequences without too
much preaching. The moral should not be dragged in, the day of the
sugar-coated pill in literature is past. The right books are those
that teach in a straightforward way that character is better than
superficial smartness, that success does not always mean the
accumulation of a large amount of money and that it is not a matter of
luck but that it depends upon perseverance in faithful work; books
which develop the child's sympathies by teaching consideration for the
feelings of others, kindness to animals and to all weak and dependent
creatures. Lack of reverence is common in the youth of today and books
and papers which ridicule old age, filial duty and other things which
ought to be respected are all too common. Few have added more to the
happiness of mankind than he who has written a classic for children.
It takes very unusual qualities to write for them. Sympathy with the
child: brightness and simplicity of diction are muc