BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 136, 24 May 1933, Page 10

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG

THEIR VALUE IN EDUCATION. OPINIONS FROM CORRESPONDENTS. Last Wednesday an article appeared on this page entitled “The Passing on an Inheritance —Importance of Books for Children.” Some well-known educationalists and other residents have here contributed some ideas well worth noting by parents and teachers, stressing the value cf good literary training, which it is considered, is greatly neglected to-day.

“An Old Mother” writes: “1 did like your timely article last Wednesday on the education of children through books of the right type. Ono cannot begin too young, it seems to me, to read aloud to them in order to train their minds to concentrate and to appreciate good language. How soon their interruptions and questions begin: ‘What does that word mean, Mother?’ ‘Who were those people?’ or ‘Tell us some more about him?’ “One wonders often whether all this machine-made entertainment is good and whether in the future when people are old and deaf or much alone the love of literature will have died in them. 1 believe it was Sir Robert Stout who years ago emphasised the blessings of a vigorous climate such as he experienced in the Shetlands as lads sought the fireside, formed debating societies and revelled in the company of books. “My father hailed from the north and after we came here in 1875 I remember ‘The Illustrated London News,’ ‘The Review of Reviews,’ ‘Great Thoughts’ and ‘Cornhill Magazine’ came regularly into our country home. They were not considered luxuries but, with the best fiction of the day, necessaries. One can never feel lonely when there are books. Incidentally, we did all our own work and even made the boys’ clothes so please do not think we were wealthy.” QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY. Mrs Gabrielle Preston-Thomas writes; “I was mtich interested in your remarks on literature for the young. You mentioned the small amount read by the average high school boy or girl. I should say that not much more can be got in to the time-table. Already most people find that the children’s work overflows too much into ‘out of school.’ In literature it is quality, not quantity, that one wants. It is only a teacher who has a real love of the beautiful and true in literature who can instil it into others. Those who were lucky enough to have people like Mr Pridham, Miss C. D. Grant and Mr H. H. Ward at a high school don’t forget their good fortune. Those teachers who can manage to create a love of good books do much. Those who can get a boy or girl to see readily the difference in beauty between say Nat Gould and the Psalms of David have done very much. “But if a mother or father can make that difference seen before the child gets to high school age. he or she has done all that can be done. The rest must be a matter of opportunity or effort of the child itself. “It is, of course, never too late to mend, but nothing can quite make up for the books read aloud to one in early youth. They become a part of one’s self. Such books as ‘David Copperfield,’ ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ‘Coral Island,’ and incidents like the bursting of Peggoty’s buttons, ‘Faster, faster! said the Red Queen,’ and Peterkin’s quaint sayings, become part of one’s most intimate recollections even when —■ or especially when —read before the tender age of seven. “Could there be anything more beautiful in the whole wide world than ‘Jackanapes?’ I have heard it said by

a very good authority that it is the most beautiful short story written and 1 fully agree. The last chapter but one can only be whispered, at best. It is very short fortunately.

“It is not possible, 1 am afraid, to get Mrs Ewing’s books in their old editions now, with their most charming illustrations by Randolph Caldecott, but I have been fortunate enough to find them anew in an excellent edition by G. Bell and Sons with illustrations by Alice B. Woodward and M. 0. Wheelhouse, including ‘Lob-Lie-By-the-Fire,’ ‘Bengy in Beastland,’ ‘A Flat Iron For a Farthing.’ and ‘Story of a Short Life,’ all of them gems of beauty, and others. Then of a more adventurous nature, but loved at any age, are Kipling's ‘Jungle Talcs,’ all tense with the instinct, discipline, charm and adventure of the jungle or of other parts of India. “Australia has its books too. Who knows ‘Tails and Tarradiddles’ by ‘Alter Ego' or ‘A Book for Kids’ by C. J. Dennis? Far away in Penang, Straits Settlements, a father writes to his child such charming short stories as ‘The White Man’s Garden’ and ‘The Meeting Pool.’ And now in New Zealand, our beautiful new fresh country, come some songs straight from our birds themselves through the magic of Eileen Duggan. 1 wish I knew her. The y were written two years ago. She says: ‘They do not pretend to be literature,’ but as the critic Prester John says of them: ‘lf they are not literature then my definition of the word will have to be amended.’ He also says ‘lt's ‘The First Night’ I would want most to have written. Read it, and if there’s a hope of heaven for you, you will knorv why.’ “The collection of 23 poems is called ‘New Zealand Bird Songs.’ I say ‘Read it and let your children treasure it and let them offer that treasure and love the fast disappearing birds about whom it is written.’ ’’ EDUCATION FOR LEISURE. “Humanist’’ writes: “In a recent address to teachers at Auckland. Lord Bledisloe pointed out that education, in the not very remote future, would have to prepare the pupil as much for his leisure time, as for his career. This is a point of view which is not entirely strange to some teachers, but one frequently wonders if this aspect of education is not overlooked by the general public and by parents in particular. The utilitarian side is stressed so much —‘My girl is going into an office. I want her to know typing and shorthand. What does she want with a foreign language?’ or, ‘My son is going on the land. He doesn’t need frills.’ But, the office girl or hoy will work eight hours per day in the office: add another two hours for getting to and from work: allow eight hours for sleep (does the average youth take eight?) and what of the remaining six? Sport or outdoor recreation of some kind rightly takes up part. Should it take up all ? One is inclined to think that, if it does, the resultant individual is not harmoniously developed, has not maintained an equilibrium between brain and brawn. Is he (or she) really interested in anything beyond sport? Is he able to converse on any other topic? When the weather fails him what does he resort to? If he has not cultivated a taste for reading, or en joying music, while he is of school age, he will find time hanging heavily on his hands. That is where the well balanced school curriculum comes in. It prepares the child to take advantage of, and to develop whatever interests hq has, by supplying him with the necessary equipment for the future. The hooligan is a hooligan largely because he does not know how to fill up his spare time; he loafs at street corners and makes himself objectionable. or he resorts to vandalism and destroys public property. “What arc our young people to do? First, let them take the fullest advantage of their free education. It sometimes strikes one that this boon is not appreciated as much as it should be, even after allowing for irresponsible youth. The classes that our forefathers

attended at night and paid for out of their little wages were set at their proper valuation. Next, let the parents encourage their children to make music at home. There is little else that gives such unalloyed delight as the making of music with others. Here we are fortunate in having a branch of the British Music Society which aims at this very thing.

“And lastly, let the children have plenty of good reading matter. Every school nowadays has its own good library, and the town has a well-chosen juvenile library where fiction (the cake and ice-cream of our literary diet) is balanced with interesting biographies. In secondary schools a list of suitable books is given each class —but tho teacher cannot go to the homes and see that these books are read. That is where the parents can do their share. By asking about the child’s reading and taking an interest in it, by discussing the plots and characters in the books, they can do much to foster a genuine love of literature —and the teachers will rise up and call them blessed!’’ “Still Thinking” writes: “Apropos of your ‘pot pourri’ on education one is reminded that the question has sorely vexed the minds of parents for many generations and perhaps with smaller need than we think. One has sympathy with those who toil so hard and deny themselves much to finish their children at expensive hoarding schools when perhaps almost the only harvest they reap is their children’s finished ability to cut old friends—but those who have budded on sure foundations in the early years of a child’s life, will sooner or later see some fruits of their labour. “The phases of development are trying at times but ‘other times, others manners’ and it is not given to us all—‘the love of browsing in the deep meadowed, happy, fair fields of literature’ any more than to us all is given the delight of tinkering with oily wheels or messing about with noisome ‘stinks.’ “I have just had the joy of reading ‘The Entrancing Life,’ J. M. Barrie’s address at his installation as Chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1930. In it he seems to me to express just what is needed for our standard in New Zealand. He says the desire should be to teach not what to think but how to think—not preparing to give as little trouble as possible in the future but preparing to give trouble which I take means that we should so educate that no one will be content to accept things as they are but be animated with that ‘divine discontent' which seeks harmony and beauty for everyone. He suggests that our learning has failed in its objective unless it makes us more temperate in mind, having more charity —following better the dictates of kindness and truth. Those who attain that are more fortunate than those who arc destined for the laurel of worldly ambition and wealth, “Are wo asking too much of tho teachers of our youth by suggesting these ideas! They themselves are more often than not the products of our New Zealand educational system which has admittedly fallen far short of the ideals upon which it was founded. “A wise mother once asked of me: ‘How can one teach tho Spirit if one is not born of the Spirit?’ How many of us have the good fortune to be taught by one who is of the Spirit? We can only hope that some day—some time—our bairns will meet with one of the elect.”