An excellent test of a friend is the making of a journey in his company. Many who are most agreeable amid the little events of every day at home, or in an accustomed round, are unable to withstand the petty annoyances that come with travel—the deferred meals, early rising, loss of sleep, the minor discomforts we all have suffered. But none of these affects the temper of a favorite book. It is ever ready for your amusement, yet never resents being put aside. It has no choice as to your-route, and asks no more than a little corner of your traveling-bag, or, at a pinch, will go into a pocket as snugly as a pet squirrel. The “London Academy” says: “Indeed, of all travellmg comrades books are the most genial and the most gentle; not books of travel—they are for the home fireside, but tales that have for background the scenery you are looking upon, or histories which deal with men and women who have dwelt and worked in the cities you are visiting.”
The Power of Time
Some years ago the school readers used to contain. a goodly proportion of stories that conveyed a moral. There was one favorite selection—how many of you recall it—called ‘The Value of
Time.” It was meant to show that even a second might make all the difference between safety and disaster. There was one striking paragraph beginning, “A train comes rushing around a curve,” and ending, “and all because the engineer’s watch was behind time!” But all this was about punctuality, the value of time. There is another matter worth your thought, quite as much as promptness and economy of minutes. The economy of saving time is wise, but there is an economy of spending time.
In reading, especially, hurry is most wasteful. Reading is the making of thoughts, of ideas, of pictures in the brain. All young photographers know how little is to be made out of an “under-exposed plate,” but do they understand that there may be such a thing as an under-exposed brain? It takes time to make impressions on the mind. If you read too fast, either aloud or to yourself, or skim over your reading, the mind receives poor impressions or none at all.
Story-poems
Who will send us a good list of poems that tell interesting stories?—poems that will interest young readers by the incidents related, as well as by the beauty of the lines? “King Robert of Sicily” is the sort of poem desired, or “The Pied Piper,” or “The Jackdaw of Rheims.” Of course they should be so written as to be within the understanding of younger readers.
New Books Worth While.
Aother book-season is over. What has it brought that our young people should read? The very fact that so many volumes come out is a strong reason for taking care that the best are not overlooked. Let us know any you have found worth the attention of our readers, and be kind enough to tell us their good points. The new books on American history are especially worth sifting; for as our country grows older and bigger, it is all the more desirable that young Americans should be reminded of the steps by which it became what it is.
The Works of Cooper.
We should be glad to, know whether our young readers are acquainted with others of James Fenimore Cooper’s books than the Leatherstocking series. There seems to be nowadays a tendency to overlook his sea-stories, though these were once great favorites. Who remembers “Long Tom Coffin,” or that famous scene in “The Pilot” where there is a series of captures that keep the reader in a state of breathless suspense?
Won't some of our older friends tell the juniors the names of books that pleased their girlhood or boyhood?—such as “Author:James Greenwood|The Adventures of Reuben Davidger]],” or “Ran Away to Sea,” or “The Life-boat,” or “Gascoyne, the Sandalwood Trader,” They are too good to be forgotten.
Helps to Right Reading
There are certain books about things that are not literary, and yet they are necessary to give us clear ideas concerning the matters we meet with in literature. Good specimens are those by Alice Morse Earle, such as her “Home Life in Colonial Days.” In telling stories it is not possible to bring clearly before the reader all the little matters that made old times different from our own days, and yet we should have an idea of the old homes and their furnishings, of costume and of customs, so that we may see old scenes and incidents as they really were. Histories touch briefly on such matters, but these other books give us all the little details of daily life. Besides, they are charming and absorbing in themselves, as you will find.
The Lives of Great Men
Perhaps the best way of reading history is to learn the lives of the persons most famous in each period. Scudder’s “Life of Washington,” once published as a serial in St. Nicholas, will give you more knowledge of the Revolutionary days in America than can be found in any of the smaller histories, and it is also the best sort of romance. What “boys’ book” has a more thrilling story to tell than that of this young Virginian, who became a surveyor, a scout, a soldier, general-in-chief, and President? Franklin’s career is a better romance than is made up by any of the popular writers for young people, and the adventures of John Paul Jones are more thrilling and more exciting than those of any of the heroes told about in so-called “stories of adventure.”
It is an old saying that truth is stranger than fiction—so old that we forget its wisdom; but compare the rise of the young Corsican lieutenant, Napoleon Buonaparte, from obscurity to an imperial throne with the most improbable story for young folks, and the truth seems more improbable than fiction. The life of Mahomet by Irving is as strange; and these are only the best known.
There is no need to go outside of history for thrilling stories. Did you ever read of Captain Tyson's drift on the ice-floe, or of the beginning of the Russian dynasty of the Romanoffs? You may choose your own sort of adventure, and history will supply you with the most wonderful examples of it.
Mutual Mentors
How would it do for two young readers to make an agreement that each should send to the other, at the end of each month, an account of any important book read, with a brief opinion of it? This would be helpful to both, and might be a pleasant means of keeping up an interesting correspondence.
Letters used to carry news, but the news now is old before a letter can arrive, Besides, if you care about each other’s opinion, each can be a check upon her friend to prevent the reading of too many frivolous books or to encourage the reading of those worth while; and it also helps to a knowledge of good books.
The Fencer John Milton
Some of our boy-readers may be interested in knowing that our great Puritan poet was very fond of athletics, always exercising every day, and taking care to keep himself strong and well and in good condition.
While at Cambridge he made himself an accomplished swordsman, and declared with the modesty that is characteristic of great men that he was quite able to protect himself from harm when he had sword in hand. It is pleasant to picture him engaged in a fencing bout, and to read of his confidence in his sword: “Armed with it, as he generally was, he was in the habit of thinking himself quite a match for any one, even were he much the more robust, and of being perfectly at his ease as to the danger of any injury that any one could offer him, man ta man,”
Reading about English History.
Something was said in this department, not long ago, advising young students to read good fiction relating to whatever period of history they happened to be studying. A friend who read what we had said and who thought well of the suggestion writes to say that in Larned’s “History of England” there is, at pages 644~649, a well-selected list of books covering English history in thirty-seven epochs, there being as many as ten works named under some of these divisions.
The same friend also wishes us to recommend highly Kenneth Grahame's books to our young readers, but for books so well known as these we hardly think that this is necessary. Neither do we advise the reading of them at too early an age, since, while they are about children, by their method of treatment they are aimed mainly at older readers.
