There is, however, a vast organization inclusive of childhood to which we may justly commit the task of familiarizing children with great literature, and of giving them a distaste for ignoble books. There is no other time of life than that embraced by the common-school course so fit for introduction to the highest, finest literature of the world. Our schools are too much given over to the acquisition of knowledge. What they need is to recognize the power which lies in enlightenment. In the susceptible period of youth we must introduce through the medium of literature the light which will give the eye the precious power of seeing. But look at the apparatus now in use. Look at the reading-books which are given to children in the mechanical system of grading. Is this feast of scraps really the best we can offer for the intellectual and spiritual nourishment of the young? What do these books teach the child of reading? They supply him with the power to read print at sight, to pronounce accurately the several words that meet the eye, and to know the time value of the several marks of punctuation; but they no more make readers of children than an accordeon supplies one with the power to appreciate and enjoy a sonata of Beethoven. I do not object to intelligent drill, but I maintain that in our schools it bears little or no relation to the actual use of the power of reading. The best of the education of children is not their ability to take up the daily newspaper or the monthly magazine after they leave school, but their interest in good literature and their power to read it with apprehension if not comprehension. This can be taught in school. Not only so, it ought to be taught, for unless the child’s mind is plainly set in this direction, it is very unlikely that he will find the way for himself. I look, therefore, with the greatest interest upon that movement in our public schools which tends to bring the great literature before children. * * * * * The study of childhood in literature has led insensibly to observations on literature for children. The two subjects are not far apart, for both testify to the same fact, that in the growth of human life there has been an irregular but positive advance, and a profounder perception of the rights and duties involved in personality. What may lie in the future I will not venture to predict, but it is quite safe to say that the form in which childhood is presented will still depend upon the sympathy of imaginative writers with the ideal of childhood, and that the form of literature for children will be determined by the greater or less care with which society guards the sanctity of childish life. FOOTNOTES [1] Chapman’s _The Iliads of Homer_, ii. 70-77. [2] _Iliads_, iv. 147-151. [3] _Iliads_, xvi. 5-8. [4] _Ibid._ xi. 485-490. [5] _Iliad_, vi. 466-475, 482-485. [6] Goldwin Smith’s translation. [7] John Addington Symonds’s translation.