Page:Book of Etiquette, Volume 1, by Lilian Eichler.djvu/300

270 wisdom from the pen of Paxton Hood reveals one great duty which confronts every parent. The child must have its own library, and one that will correctly develop its mind and manners. Even if it is only one shelf of books in the nursery, it should belong to the child itself. The pride of personal ownership increases the value of the books.

Books should be chosen with care, but there should be sufficient variety to enable the young boy or girl to select the subject that he or she is most interested in. Fiction should be of the better kind, Robinson Crusoe, Little Lord Fauntleroy, the Jungle Books, Grimm's or Anderson's Fairy Tales, "Alice in Wonderland," etc. Boys will like "Plain Tales from the Hills," "Bob, Son of Battle," "Treasure Island," "The Sea-Wolf," "Huckleberry Finn," "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," etc.

There should be special attention given to the classics. It is unfortunate that so much of the time devoted to them should be spent altogether in the schoolroom for books that one has to read are rarely the ones that one likes best. Dickens, Thackeray, Shakespeare, George Eliot, and a mighty host of others are waiting for the child who is old enough to understand them. The parent should watch the tendencies of the mind of his child and should keep him supplied with books that will develop and expand the little intellect in accordance with its natural preferences. The best way to teach a child to care for books is to keep him surrounded with them and to read to him or tell him stories from time to time and to be patient if he is slow in manifesting a desire to use the key that unlocks the treasure that lies between the covers of books.

Music is one of the best means of developing the child's