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The Publishing Ministry
Parents to Control Reading Habits of Children—Many youth
are eager for books. They read anything that they can obtain. I appeal
to the parents of such children to control their desire for reading. Do
not permit upon your tables the magazines and newspapers in which
are found love stories. Supply their place with books that will help
the youth to put into their character-building the very best material—
the love and fear of God, the knowledge of Christ. Encourage your
children to store the mind with valuable knowledge, to let that which
is good occupy the soul and control its powers, leaving no place for
low, debasing thoughts. Restrict the desire for reading matter that does
not furnish good food for the mind.
Parents should endeavor to keep out of the home every influence
that is not productive of good. In this matter some parents have much
to learn. To those who feel free to read story magazines and novels
I would say: You are sowing seed the harvest of which you will not
care to garner. From such reading there is no spiritual strength to be
gained. Rather it destroys love for the pure truth of the word. Through
the agency of novels and story magazines, Satan is working to fill with
unreal and trivial thoughts minds that should be diligently studying
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the word of God. Thus he is robbing thousands upon thousands of the
time and energy and self-discipline demanded by the stern problems
of life.
Children need proper reading which will afford amusement and
recreation and not demoralize the mind or weary the body. If they
are taught to love romance and newspaper tales, instructive books
and papers will become distasteful to them. Most children and young
people will have reading matter; and if it is not selected for them they
will select it for themselves. They can find a ruinous quality of reading
anywhere, and they soon learn to love it; but if pure and good reading
is furnished them, they will cultivate a taste for that.—
The Adventist
Home, 410, 411
.
What Shall the Children Read?—1. Fiction?—What shall our
children read? This is a serious question and one that demands a
serious answer. It troubles me to see in Sabbathkeeping families
periodicals and newspapers containing continued stories which leave
no impressions for good on the minds of children and youth. I have
watched those whose taste for fiction was thus cultivated. They have
had the privilege of listening to the truth, of becoming acquainted with