est
books and newspapers.

Reading brings us into the company of those who wrote the book. Now we
should be just as careful to avoid a bad book as a bad man, and even
more so; for while we read we can stop to think, and read over again, so
that bad words read will often make more impression upon us than bad
words spoken to us. You should avoid not only bad, but useless books.
You could not waste all your time with an idle man without becoming like
him--an idler. So if you waste your time on useless books, your
knowledge will be just like the books--useless. Many authors write only
for the sake of money, and care little whether their book is good or
bad, provided it sells well. How many young people have been ruined by
bad books, and how many more by foolish books! Boys, for example, read
in some worthless book of desperate deeds of highway robbery or piracy,
and are at once filled with the desire to imitate the hero of the tale.
Young girls, on the other hand, are equally infatuated by the wonderful
fortunes and adventures of some young woman whose life has been so
vividly described in a trashy novel. As the result of such reading,
young persons lose the true idea of virtue and valor of true, noble
manhood and womanhood, and with their hearts and minds corrupted set up
vice for their model.

Again, these books are filled with such terrible lies and unlikely
things that any sensible boy or girl should see their foolishness at
once. Think, for example, of a book relating how two boys defeated and
killed or captured several hundred Indians! Is that likely? The truth
is, if two Indians shook their tomahawks at as many boys as you could
crowd into this building, every single one of them would run for his
life.

Let me give you still another reason for not reading trashy books. Your
minds can hold just so much good or evil information, and if you fill
them full of lies and nonsense you leave no room for true knowledge.

Do not, therefore, get into the habit of reading foolish story-papers
and cheap novels. Read good books in which you can find information that
will be useful to you all through your life.

If now and then you read story-books for amusement or rest from study,
let them be good story-books, written by good authors. Ask someone's
advice about the books you read--someone who is capable of giving such
advice: your pastor, your teachers, and frequently your parents and
friends. Learn all through your life to a