CHILDREN’S READING

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21886, 12 September 1936, Page 17

CHILDREN’S READING

Some of our educational authorities have lately been exercised in their minds as to the kind of literature suitable for presentation to children of primary school age; and it has been remarked that experts are unwilling or Unable to make any definite pronouncement on the subject. Yet the question is an important one; and it seems a pity that it should be left thus unanswered and in the air. For it is not really unanswerable. Or rather one might say that the answer is to be found in its very unanswerableness. It may be considered under two main heads—what children should be allowed to read to themselves, and what should be read to them. We may graijt at the outset that a distinction is possible. The Child Knows Best Under the first head it is hardly too much to include anything and everything. This may seem dangerous doctrine; but it is found by experience that the child knows best—he will take what serves his needs, reject the rest; and of what he reads some part will be fully assimilated, some will be apprehended, some, if he has no present use for it, will- leave no mark whatever. The child obeys instinctively the advice implicit in Bacon’s pronouncement: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” There are classic examples of the value of this freedom. Mary Lamb “was tumbled early,” we remember, “ . . ; into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage.” And, adds her brother, “had I 20 girls they should be brought up exactly in this fashion.” This was the judgment also of the parents of Scott’s little friend, Marjorie Fleming, who was given the run of her father’s bookshelves, and found in this wise freedom from restraint immeasurable gain. At the age of eight she knew her “Tom Jones” well, the “Newgate Calendar” was part of her favourite reading, while Shakespeare crept into the very texture of her own speech. These, it| may be objected, were unusual children; but we have no particular evidence of this. Indeed, the records of the little girl from Kirkcaldy show rather how normal she was in all things except perhaps in her delightful expressiveness, and this unusually developed power may be set down, at least in part, to the spaciousness of her reading. In any case, quite ordinary children have been known to take delight, at just such a tender age, in Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,” Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and, again, . the plays of Shakespeare (these even in their “Folio” form). True, in the days of Mary Lamb’s childhood there was no special provision made for the reading of children, there was vdry little more when Marjorie Fleming’s eager little mind was seeking nourishment. But that is little to the point. It means chiefly that the extent of the “fair and wholesome pasturage” has been enormously increased for our own children; though there is this also to be said, that we might reasonably, rather see our eight-year-olds with “Tom Jones” in their hands than with some of the more specifically childish books that now tflood the market. Is it not true that the best of these always appeal as strongly to adults -as to children? But it is not to be supposed that the pleasure and the stimulus are the same for each. In the same way the reading that is intended primarily for the adult will contain much of pleasure and of profit for the child. And it may be reiterated—the child is the best judge. He alone knows what he ■wants; and the time to give it to him is when he wants it. He is, speaking broadly, a little animal, with the sound instincts of an animal. His mind will

A Case for Freedom

(SPECULLT WSITTER 808 THE PBSSS.)

[By BARRY MACDONALD.]

leave untouched those 4 things ictl which it is not ready. Beading Aloud It has been suggested that a distinction may be drawn between what we allow children to read for themselves, and what we deliberately read to them. But it does not go very deep. Children normally like to be read to, and it is excellent training, especially in these days when in so many homes there is a background of unlistened-to sound —speech or ‘music—from the “wireless.” Apart from this, the difference when the adult, parent or teacher reads to the child instead of the child’s reading to himself, lies chiefly in the fact that now it is as a rule the adult who makes the choice. He chooses what he supposes the child will enjoy and profit from. By his reading he can make some parts more impressive than others, and he has it in his power, further, to omit, or to pass quickly over, parts of the book for which he thinks the child should have no use. But he must do it all out of his half-knowledge of the child’s mind and its needs; and although it is true that he may influence the child’s acceptance and understanding of what is read, in the main the contention stands—the child will take what suits him and his stage of development, and will leave the rest. Another thing: in these modern times there are other important sources of information, other powerful forces at work, educative or miseducative (but it is all education of a kind). And the adult who considers the views of life, often so distorted and false and. vicious, on which the average child is'allowed to batten in the cinemas, will feel the less misgiving with regard at any rate to the strength of the fare he offers him, either directly or indirectly, in his reading. Indeed, with these other forces in mind, he will ask only that the book he offers should be reasonably true to life in one or more of its aspects. Psychology is as yet but a young, perhaps only a pseudo, science, and at best the light we have to guide us in our attempts to help the young is dim; but it is likely to shine more dearly for an experienced teacher than for another. Current Dangers There is really little more to be said on the subject But there is this. When Bridget Elia was tumbled into that “spacious closet” it was of “good old English reading.” Nobody would pretend that pn books are of equal value, and in our own day writers have multiplied painfully and become painfully prolific. So that there is much poor stuff (and worse) than may come in the way of the questing child. Nevertheless the danger is small; and it is better that he should read much, including even a deal of what the adults may consider “rubbish,” than that he should read little or not at all. Only thus will his taste be formed, and it is surprising how quickly a sound judgment is acquired by a child who is allowed to read freely. Moreover, in this as in some Other matters, prohibition is of no avail; if an “unsuitable” book is forbidden, curiosity will be aroused (and satisfied in spite of us); the child will come to less harm if he is given the absolute freedom of the Mbraries. “Truth loves open dealing,” and it is more often our attitude towards a book, rather than the matter of the book itself, that makes it harmful, if harmful it really is. “Truth,” further, “hath a quiet breast,” and so may they have who love and seek Of those who would condemn a book unread, and on its title alone, and by implication the man who reads it to his children, what shall be said? The Psalmist has a word for them, and “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision ” Would these excellent men not consider, on second thoughts, that this might be one of those occasions “when God laughs”?