Life — February 11, 1904 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

142 A Pomological Prodigy. [LEE exes have somber purple glints Like tints rapes Whose sides the sunshine Her cheeks flame with the ruddy blush Of apples whieh with tang 2 Her lips are of that ruby red Of cherries which on dew are fed Her teeth are Such pearls the pome Her hair is black On it the dark blues of the plum yet oft there come O, fairest fruit, beyond my reach! ysum her up, she is a peach! We D. Nesbit, Books for Babes. RE children dete rating mentall the makers of ehil- do dren's books assume a feeble-mindedness which happily does not as yet exist? A short study of the juvenile literature which has been printed this past season for the undermining of infant intellects leaves us in a state of painful doubt as to whether little boys and girls have grown hopelessly stupi whether they are merely be into habits of early vacuity. of writing down to their supposed under- standing has been carried so far that no chance is given them to exert what minds they may possess, or to grasp a single thought above the nursery level. Rhymes that might fitly be christened * First Les- 1 Imbecility ” are provided to extin- budding love for poetry. Stories from which all spark of life has been carefully eliminated may be trusted to dull their childish im: : Dinsmore—now a “ grandma’ “3, and every guish any to blight their young Ii effort has been conscientiously made by , publisher and parent to preserve them from the peril of thinking. And as if these wrongs were not deep enough, as if the trash prepared exclu- for children was not warranted to insure their mental debility, hands have been laid upon the books which might otherwise prick them into understanding. It is assumed that they have not sense enough to read “David Copperfield” or * Nicholas write » leby"” — those true and lasting friends—so little David, torn from his context, is served up like a sort of rice pudding at the nursery table, and Mor- Jeena Kenwigs appeers, alone and single- *LIPE- nt mind Vip and the Marehio Paul ess share handed, to amuse the in’ Dombey sad fate. been and ildren’s the same They have rubbed down fied into called © poks: ancholy, not to say sacrilegious, that one what 4 process so m shudders at the unholy courage whieh could e upon it, Othee comp boys and girls from. the venta rs are at and presenti “young readers" in a series of Sven poor lithe Eva has dragged retirement of Unele Tom’s Cabin to expire lingerin for the edification of the nursery, like those doomed infants of New England roof God was re markably budding before they died, juvenile st been from the tales, “in whom the fea seven, Are children, then, to be debarred ft literature, from the books which have quickened the imagin: Hi stirred the hearts of those Justier generations for whom no milk-and-water diet wits prepared? Rey. Dr. Brown, in his introduc “Bible for Children,” thoughtfully explains that “care for childhood, not t for the Bible,” prompted his undertaking. This is nerous, but one thinks wistfully of little Jobn Ruskin reading his Bible as he found it, of little Tom Macaulay reading Shakes- peare, of little Walter Scott reading ** The Faiery Queen,” of less famous children the world over reading whatever masterpieces came into their eager hands. “There's sore decline in Adam's line.” 1 to the an no longer set their real books, but must the weak and scanty nourishment their nursery shelves afford. if our young peopl minds to work upo be spoon-fed with Agnes Kepplier, Fila. [PEORIDA, one of the principal gambling centres of the United States, is located just south of the Waldorf-Astoria, and is inhabited by bell-boys, head waiters and magnates during the winter months, and by mosquitoes, malaria and mangoes in the sammer. In places, Florida rises to a depth of ten feet above the level of the sea, and, unlike some rolling stom gathers moss all the time. The chief industries of Florida are the roulette table and several orange groves, so situated that no matter which you play, you lose. The climate of Florida varies, being warm enough for straw hats and cold enough to freeze you to death, all in the same day. Money is freely raised in Florida, at St. Augustine and Palm Beach, socalled because of the outward, or extended, palm. There are no germs in Florida, it cost- ing them too much to stay overnight in the hotels. MAL BACHRMNM, TEMPTATION OF PARSIVAL CLEVELANO BY KUNORY-DEMOCRACY “ witn ue yirtp? comicbooks.com