int, for children should be taught from their
earliest years to treat books well, and not to destroy them as they often
do. We might go farther than this and say that children should be taught
at school how to handle a book. It is really astonishing to see how few
persons (not necessarily children) among those who have not grown up among
books know how to handle them. It is positive torture to a man who loves
books to see the way they are ordinarily treated. Of course it is not
necessary to mention the crimes of wetting the fingers to turn over the
leaves, or turning down pages to mark the place; but those who ought to
know better will turn a book over on its face at the place where they have
left off reading, or will turn over pages so carelessly that they give a
crease to each which will never come out.

For a healthy education it is probably best that a child should have the
run of a library for adults (always provided that dangerous books are
carefully excluded). A boy is much more likely to enjoy and find benefit
from the books he selects himself than from those selected for him.

The circumstances of the child should be considered in the selection of
books; thus it is scarcely fair when children are working hard at school
all day that they should be made to read so-called instructive books in
the evening. They have earned the right to relaxation and should be
allowed good novels. To some boys books of Travels and History are more
acceptable than novels, but all children require some Fiction, and, save
in a few exceptional cases, their imaginations require to be cultivated.

It will soon be seen whether children have healthy or unhealthy tastes. If
healthy, they are best left to themselves; if unhealthy, they must be
directed.

It is easy for the seniors to neglect the children they have under them,
and it is easy to direct them overmuch, but it is difficult to watch and
yet let the children go their own way. We are apt, in arranging for
others, to be too instructive; nothing is less acceptable to children or
less likely to do them good than to be preached at. Moral reflections in
books are usually skipped by children, and unless somewhat out of the
common, probably by grown-up persons as well. Instruction should grow
naturally out of the theme itself, and form an integral part of it, so
that high aims and noble thoughts may naturally present themselves to the
readers.

One of the chapters in the United States