WHAT OUR BOYS SHOULD READ.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

WHAT OUR BOYS SHOULD READ.

I ' : "IS WALTER SCOTT OLD-FASH- ' . IONED?" ; . . , Every autumn the book market" is flooded - with "books for boys" and "books for i girls" to tempt fathers and uncles when * they are buying their Christmas presents. The books are beautifully got up with pic- ' tures and gay covers, and they are often ' very cleverly written; " but they are writ- . ten, as they profess to be, for boys or for girls. Experience teaches us that the girls ' read the books for boys, and that nobody , reads this books for the girls. , What do tue boys read? asks a writer i in the London Evening News. If they are ' wise boys, or have wise fathers, they pass over the .modernised, watered-down versions ' of the old ballads and romances, the stories : of school life (mainly written by old maids), and the pale reflection of more Cooper '< or Henty, and go back to the best books ' for boys—the books that were written for , grown-up people by authors with boys' ', hearts. -And the best of them all are the ; books of Walter Scott. • " One really can't read Scott nowadays," : yawned a superior person once in my hearing. Nowadays," it is true, meant some ' few years ago, at the time when "The ' Yellow Book'' was the thing and fashion, ' I fancy, has veered round again since; * but ; my conviction at the time was that the : superior person never had read Scott. If he had, could he have forgotten the thrilling excitement of "' Ivanhoe," or " Rob Roy," or "The Talisman?" the tears he shed over " Woodstock," or "The Heart of ' Midlothian?" the .strange,'- romantic fas- : cination of "Old Mortality?" scott's pre-eminence. These are things, surely, that once felt ■ can never be forgotten, and can never fail to exert their influence on the oldest boy. And. if growing up means losing one's taste for such pleasures, we had all better become Peter Pans, and refuse to grow up. 'There are no stories like Scott's. They are much more exciting than the wildest ' of mere adventure tales, because the people ' are so much more real; and yet when the ; boy, old or young, has finished the book > he does not toss it aside with the feeling ' of distaste and the sudden reaction which follows on the reading of less noble stories. There are several causes for this, and together, they make up the reason why I give Scott the pre-eminence as a writer for boys.-. In : the first place, the story is never planned merely so as to excite. It is meant to interesta very different thing, to give a picture of life at a certain stage of the world's history, to reveal nobility of character— and bravery in men, purity and devotion in' womento call up men and women. long ages dead and give them new life in the company of imaginary people as, vivid , and , real as themselves ; to put down in words so that all the world may share it, the very spirit of a country, of a period. The whole feudal age lives in "Ivanhoe,"; and : "The Talisman," and " Quentin Durward;" the whole devoted melancholy of Scotland "Old Mortality;" the whole Elizabethan age in "Kenilworth." Reading these stories, the youngest and most careless of mere "excitement-hunters cannot fail, however boldly he may skip, to pick up a great deal more information than he perhaps expects. It is not 60 much that he has learned some history (though very likely: ; it is ' the -only history he will remember in later life), and a good deal of miscellaneous knowledge; but that he has been in communion, however incomplete, . with the great and well-stored mind of a ' man who was not only an antiquary and a ' historian, but as brave/ lofty, and royal a 1 soul as any of his own heroes. . A I'EIISONAL EXPEDIENCE. A single instance is worth a score of statements. When I began to read Scott \ (at the age of aeout six), I liked, of course, • " Ivanhoe" the best. A little later, about ' ten or eleven,. I found that my favourite " Was .-''.Quentin Durward," and ;;v* Quentin \ Durward" has remained my favourite ever ,' sbj<;e„. "'i. '.l; am not quite sure why—it is not . the 'west of Scott's novels", but I can ■hazard " a reason: -The character of Quentin him- ' self fascinated me then, and has never : ceased ' to fascinate me by survival. '. In one of his essays' Robert Louis Steven- , son confesses to so high an admiration" of I Dumas " D'Artagnan" that he would ask . himself before (or after) doing anything \. whether his :" dear D'Artagnan" . would I have liken him to ;do it. It was in that ■• way that;- as a boy, I 1 looked on Quentin. ' He was my hero, and though the world and j I have, grown, older since then, we have , not yet reached the stage; at which we can ! altogether,, do without such .qualities as ' Quentin's. , - . One more point must be mentioned. In ' Scott, and in Scott almost alone among the , writers with-whom'; this little: series of ',' articles is intended to deal, do we find the | i sort of women whom it is good for boys to '. admire, described in a. : manner worthy of ; them—strongly, simply, and sanely-r-with-out condonations of their faults .or exagge- , ration of " their splendid virtues. In Scott l'.js best of the spirit of chivalry lived on; , he looked at women with clear but reverent eyes, and understood both Flora Macdonald ; and Efiie Deans.;; I have- been in love with some of Scott's heroines all my life; and if that is not a " liberal .education" it is uncommonly pleasant. . 1. Perhaps, however,'■ after all, the noblest \ thing Scott created was his own life, and ', Loehart's story ;of it ' as appealing and ', exciting as any of the Waverley novels. .