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Show NOT GOOD FOR CHILDREN. The colored comic supplement of the Sunday newspapers is being widely condemned, and of late organized bodies, such as the Associated Clubs of New York, have been making a campaign against the trashy illustrations, in their grotesque and sensational features. C. G. Leland, supervisor of libraries of the board of education in New York City, in an address on the harm done children by comic papers, said: "There is no need for us to quarrel with this kind of art for grownups ; it probably has its virtues. But for children we want something some-thing better. "There is such a wealth of good, clean, wholesome fun in the world of picture books that to feed them on this trash in their impressionable im-pressionable years is almost criminal. "All the work that schools and museums and educators may do toward raising the standard of public taste and public manners is continually being offset by the cheap and sensational press. The wise parent will avoid this type of child's book as carefully as she does the source from which it comes, keeping a watchful eye upon less thoughtful friends, especially uncles, who come bringing gifts. "Think of the opportunities a newspaper has to develop and raise the public taste, instead of sinking continually below the level. "Why not have, instead of inferior artists with diseased imaginations, imag-inations, draughtsmen of ability, even if it docs cost a little more? Newspapers spend great sums of money on less worthy matters. There is, I believe, a growing sentiment in the editorial sanctum in favor of reform in this direction, and I think we should all help it along, especially those who are given to writing to the papers on various var-ious questions." The better papers are discarding the colored supplement because of its demoralizing influence. Two-thirds of the pictures are suggestive suggest-ive of improper tricks and some of them are coarse and vulgar. There is an opportunity for artists of clever conceptions and skill to present to the American youth something wholesome to sup- plant the present "funny" pictures. |