The fact is, our guilt has come home to us. A much pleasanter bill of fare is being provided for them, and it is confidently expected that the early courses of sugarwater and lollipop will gently and kindergartenly induce an appetite for the ensuing roast. They are no longer required to be seen and not heard, or to put up with the scraps of literature which may fall from the wholesome (that is, tiresome) table of their elders. But the situation is hardly imaginable nowadays, since children have plenty of reading to amuse themselves with besides the best. There is a chance that an imaginative child may be helped toward a taste for good literature by having to amuse himself with that or nothing he may delight in the rhythm of great poetry or the stately march of great prose before he can get an inkling as to what it is all about. This was not in all respects an admirable diet for readers of any age, but it had its good points. It was only a century ago, as everybody remembers, that literary sucklings were nurtured on the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, and Fox's Book of Martyrs.
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