The American Child by Elizabeth McCracken
page 61 of 136 (44%)
page 61 of 136 (44%)
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be educated _at all._ City children can _see_ things, and learn about
them that way. Country children have to read about them if they are to know about them." The books were of many types--poetry, fiction, historical stories, nature study, and several volumes of the "how to make" variety. All of these were of the best of their several kinds--identical with the books found in the "Children's Room" in any well-selected public library. Some of them had been gifts to the children from "summer boarders," but the majority had been chosen and purchased by their parents. "We hunt up the names of good books for children in the book review departments of the magazines," the mother said. When I asked what magazines, she mentioned three. Two she and her husband "took"; the other she borrowed monthly from a neighbor, on an "exchange" basis. No other children in that region were so abundantly supplied with books; but all whom I met liked to read. Their parents, in most cases unable to give them numerous books, had, in almost every instance, taught them to love reading. One boy with whom I became friends had a birthday while I was in the neighborhood. I had heard him express a longing to read "The Lays of Ancient Rome," which neither he nor any other child in the vicinity possessed, so I presented him with a copy of it. "Would you mind if I gave it to the library?" he asked. "Then the other children around could read it, too." |
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