Our Reading Course

310 IMPROVEMENT ERA. are thankful. Trusting that the Lord will continue to bless our efforts, and the Mutual cause, and all its workers, we remain, Your brethren, in the cause, Jesse W. Hoopes, Jos. M. Reeder, David 0. Stohl." There are 929 souls in the ward in question, and a list of 110 subscribers. OUR READING COURSESufficient time has now passed to enable Mutual workers to determine the degree of success they have met with in the matter of reading. What have you done in this respect? Have you kept at it continuously, persistently? Stop long enough now to find out as definitely as you can the result of your labor. Perhaps the two following suggestions will help you during the rest of the year. First, though, don't forget the general purpose of this course — which is, not necessarily to get into the minds of the boys the body of information, or what not, contained in the volumes they are to read ; but to get the boys interested in reading, to induce in them the reading habit. I call attention to this part, and empha. size it here, because it is so important, and also, because in some Wards^t has been lost sight of. One of my suggestions: if you find the books recommended by the General Board too difiicult to get your boys interested in, don't give up the matter of reading entirely, but look around for some books that are not too difficult. The main thing, of course, is that you study the interests of the boys — that is, find out, as best you can, what kind of reading, if any, they like, and then how you may divert their reading. This is also the first thing. Now, if having done this, you discover a wide gap between the boys' interests and these particular books, try to get reading matter that will appeal to their interest. Adaptation of means to ends, that is the great point here as elsewhere. It is hard to understand, speaking now of the junior class, how a boy with ordinarily wholesome tastes cannot be got to read Wild Animals I Have Known. Still, there are such. If so, then they might be induced to read some of Horatio Alger's books. Of these probably Only an Irish Boy and Rough and Ready are the best. The average boy, once he has started out on either, will devour it with the avidity that he would a piece of mince pie. It may be, too, that, afterwards, he could be got to read Boys of St. Timothy by Arthur Stanford Pier, or The Silver Skates, or even Wild Animals. It is an unfortunate fact — But still, I believe, a fact — that the better the style in which a book is written, the less it appeals to boys. That is to say, the subject matter being the same in two given books — one being written in a good, the other in an indifferent, style — the average, unreading boy will like the latter better than the former. The reason for this, I suppose, is that the boy is looking for the thing, not the dress of it, and the one dress is more like what he himself would give it. Now it is certainly a far cry from the literary workmanship of

MUTUAL WORK. 311 Only an Irish Boy to Wild Animals, or even to The Silver Skates. So, by experimenting, it may be that you can get the boys to read this entire course. The moral tone of all these books mentioned is altogether beyond question. The same things may be said of the young men in the senior class. Very probably one who cannot be induced to read Great Truths or The Strength of Being Clean, can be gotten to read An Iron Will, by Marsden or Straight Shots at Young Men, by Washington Gladden. Similarly, he who would not read Silas Marner — one of the most perfect — from an artistic point of view — works in English fiction — would be interested in John Halifax, Gentleman. Just as a person who cannot understand a great picture would find enjojonent in looking at an inferior one. There's no use talking, the taste has to be educated up to the classics. The main point is, take the boy's taste as you find it, and lead him up from that— I was about to say, no matter what good books you give him to read, provided, always, he is interested and you are doing the leading. My second suggestion is this : See if you cannot do some reading in your classes, say ten minutes every week, for the purpose of arousing interest in the young men concerning some of the books you want them to read. Now, to get a boy to pick up a book and begin the laborious process of reading it, is one thing, and to read to him while you have him there in your class, is another, and much easier thing. There are always a hundred and one obstacles lying between the unreading boy and the book. He doesn't like to read anything; he has to get favorable circumstances under which to read; he reads very likely with great labor; besides, there are other things he likes better. To be sure, some boys will rise above all these difficulties; but these are the boys who read, and these are not the ones, generally speaking, that need your help; they will get along very well without you. But do a little reading to your class of an evening, from an interesting book, and you have started the attention. A young man in a certain ward thought it would be a good idea to read that inimitable story by Charles Dickens — The Christmas Carol. Being one of those teachers who believe in doing their class work with dispatch, and who do not wander from the lesson, he easily found a few minutes to devote to reading. Now, The Christmas Carol is a ghost story, though with a most wholesome lesson in it, of opening affection; and so, as the reading progressed, he roused the most attentive interest. When the interest of the class reached the highest point, a good many of the boys bought books themselves, or borrowed them, in order to finish the story. And so there was no need to finish it in the class. Stories, of course, lend themselves more easily to this kind of work than any other form of literature, because of the constant looking forward that it compels. But once the interest is aroused in reading, the teacher may go from one thing to another till he gains his point. This particular class leader is trying another book now, not a story. Study the interests of your boys, then ; find out what they would likely be concerned in, so far as reading goes; give them such reading matter as they will like, if J^ they do not take readily to the books recommended by the General Board; devote a few minutes every class period to arousing interest in some particular

312 IMPROVEMENT ERA. book ; and then look for opportunities, for openings, where you can introduce suitable reading for the individual members of your class. John Henry Evans.