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Show 1 . Read Good Rooks-', How many young people of this city employ their leisure in the peru- J sal of good books and the acquirement acquire-ment of useful information? If the number wero attainable and the answer given . all would be surprised. sur-prised. An inquiry of the booksellers of the city develops the fact that the hook trade is simply no trado at all. The news vendors and stationery dealers keep books for tho accommodation accommo-dation of a few customers, but they are principally used as "shelf stock," the dealers carrying just so much dead weight as they have money invested in-vested in books. Yet the amount of flash literature--passion-exciting and moral-corrupting papers such as the Day's Doings, Police Xeics, and the trashy, sensational" novels Tvhich is sold is something wonderful and painful pain-ful to contemplate. It is not because tho young are lacking in native capacity for intelligence intelli-gence that they turn their attention from the good to the worse than bad, but it is for want of proper training and educating educat-ing of intellectual tastes ami directing of mental desires. The young mind should be taught to reach forth and grasp after a kind of knowledge that will be useful in life, and when the appetite for intellectual food is acquired ac-quired it should be fed with suit able nourishment. At home in the family circle i3 the place to begin this tempering of tho inclinations. Parents ought to provide their children chil-dren with interesting and useful books and then impress their minds with the importance of study and the acquirement of knowledge; and when . the boy geta fairly started in a particular partic-ular path it is easy to keep him walking walk-ing in that direction, providing the road is nihde attractive; and the properly moulded mind of a boy will bo more easily entertained and infer-esttd infer-esttd by the pursuit of good and that which will be of future benefit, than by following the opposite course, l'arenta, place before your children cood kwks, and instill in them and cultivate an ambition to read and learn. It is a duty waich you owe to your offspring and the community; and children owe to society that which will elevate it when they shall enter the c.rcle. |