I know some good people, among whom I can count half a score of
ministers, who try very hard to keep bad books and periodicals out of
the family circle.

There is no end to their talk against these things. They tell their
children that they must never read such and such books, and that if
they ever catch one of them reading these books, they shall take good
care to punish them for it.

But in spite of all the efforts of these people, they don't succeed in
keeping these bad books out of the family. In some way or other, they
are smuggled into the hands of a boy or girl, and they are read, while
the parent, perhaps, knows nothing of it. That is all wrong, of
course. I don't mean to say anything to excuse the boy or
girl--nothing of the kind. But why didn't these parents go another
way to work? Why, instead of preaching all those long sermons on bad
books, and threatening their children with punishment in case they
read these books, why did they not provide other books, equally
interesting, though innocent and useful? That would have been a wiser
course, methinks. That would have been the right end of the crow-bar
to work at. The way to get rid of an evil is to find something else to
put in its place. So I think.

But some of these very fathers and mothers, though they cry out so
loudly against immoral books and periodicals, say they cannot afford
to buy books for their children. It was only last week that I heard
one of them tell a friend, who asked him to subscribe for a magazine
for his daughter, that he was poor, and could not afford it. Poor! he
gave one party last winter, on this same daughter's account, which
cost him more than a hundred dollars. He cannot afford it! Well, if he