12 Colorado College Studies. 



the last of the great readers. Led by his own inclination, 

 John Fiske had read at seven Rolliu, Josephus, Goldsmith's 

 "Greece," Shakespeare, Bunyan and Milton. As some one 

 said of this reading of his, " I dare say he skipped to get the 

 stories, but they were great stories." At eleven he had read 

 Gibbon, Robertson, Prescott, Froissart. This was his reading 

 for pleasure, and was wholly apart from the intense study 

 going on at the same time. 



But objections have been and can be brought against this 

 habit of reading. One, which is directed not merely against 

 this, but against much of what has already been said, is that 

 it means the overcrowding of the child's brain. In an article 

 published during the summer in one of our best weeklies, a 

 writer discussed this objection under the question, "Are Our 

 Children Precocious or Infantile?" and she concluded that, 

 while naturally quick, our American children are in reality 

 infantile in their acquirements. Part of the fault must be 

 laid at the door of the necessity we are under of educating 

 children in regiments, but part also must be answered for by 

 the foolish notion that it is a severer tax on the brain " to 

 learn that a certain combination of three letters means cat 

 than that a certain furry creature, having a long tail and 

 catching mice, is a cat," that it breaks down the brain power 

 to read Southey's "Life of Nelson," but builds it up to read 

 Oliver Optic's ''Soldier Boy" and " Sailor Boy." The opposite 

 is the truth. The book full of unreality and sentimentality 

 without genuine emotion and high imagination is what breaks 

 down the mind, and with it the body, while the good book 

 is a tonic, " as refreshing and strengthening as the sunshine 

 and the sea water." 



But a more definite objection is urged to this habit of 

 library browsing. It is said that if the library is at all inclu- 

 sive of great literature there will be much in it w^hich will pol- 

 lute the child's imagination. But is this true? Has any one a 

 grain of evidence to support the theory that a child, early 

 taught to love the best literature and drawn to it of its own 

 accord, will be polluted by the coarseness which is here and 

 there a blot upon it? The little girl wdio last year read through 

 the " Canterbury Tales " expressed to her father her delight, 



