nunciation--through that form which _is_ loved for its own
sake; whose beauty is its own excuse for being; and the sense of love
and beauty, when awakened, makes all things plain. _Ubi caritas, ibi
claritas._

Many who have written books for the young professedly to impart
Christian instruction, have least observed the mode exhibited in the
teachings of him whom they profess to take as their Great Exemplar.
Their instruction is too explicit. It is presented without a
sufficiency of concrete clothing to keep it warm; sometimes in its
abstract nakedness. It is thus powerless to awaken the love and sympathy
of young hearts.

If the views above expressed are sound, I would say that, in choosing
reading matter for the young, special preference should be given to such
stories as serve to awaken the imagination, exercise the sympathies, and
nourish a lively and joyous enthusiasm. I should wholly exclude
explicitly moral and religious stories, and should choose in their
stead, stories of human sympathy and sacrifice, heroic endurance, and
unconscious virtues (_conscious_ virtue is always weak), fairy tales,
and legends gay and sad. A child of healthful, unperverted feelings is
averse to moral and religious books, as a class. It would rather read
about Robinson Crusoe and his faithful man Friday, and it is far better
that it should have such preference--far better that it should live,
while a child,

in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid,

instead of being prematurely crammed with, to it, lifeless moral and
religious principles, 'useful' knowledge, and the sciences. Wholesome to
every one would be such 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights' as are
expressed by Tennyson:

'Far off, and where the lemon-grove
In closest coverture upsprung,
The living airs of middle night
Died round the bulbul as he sung;
Not he: but something which possessed
The darkness of the world, delight,
Life, anguish, death, immortal love,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepressed,
Apart from place, withholding time,
But flattering the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.'

A child cannot be made virtuous by maxims. The life which is before it,
is not a scheme to be taught, but a drama to be acted.

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail.

But

What is she,