WITH THE EDITOR
FOR our name we have chosenYouth. This word is the fullest expression of our ambition. It stands for that period of human life toward which the very young folk look forward with pleasant anticipations, and the old look back with something like regret. It contains the suggestion of hope, vigor, and buoyancy—the ideal requisites of America’s young folks. Surely we might have looked far for a more fitting title.
Although a new name to many, and therefore lacking in that esteem which only long acquaintance can give, we have every reason to expect the same generous greeting which we have heretofore received.
Indeed, beginning with this issue, we shall have with us many who have knownYouthin its earlier home. We offer them a hearty welcome and promise to do our utmost to deserve a continuation of their stanch support.
A great many well-meaning people seem to regard childhood and youth in the light of an ailment. This is painfully apparent in their views of juvenile literature. As they might forbid a particular diet to all invalids, so, just as rigidly, they prohibit the reading of this or that form of literature by those afflicted with youthfulness.
Like the doctors who deal with our physical bodies, these very earnest people seldom agree among themselves as to the proper remedies and measures of prevention.
What, most unfortunately, they do agree in, is that the best attention must be given to the supposed ailment instead of to the individual boy or girl. No young person should be allowed to read fairy stories, says one. Nor stories without an immediate moral purpose, declares another. Nor stories of adventure, insists a third.
Now, upon behalf of the young people themselves, we wish to enter our most solemn objection to this kind of reasoning.
There are books, of course, which should not be read by young people, but as a rule these same books should not be read by grown people, either. They are essentially bad, and no one will defend them.
We admit, moreover, that no highly improbable fiction is healthy as a regular diet. But we do assert that for a child of undeveloped imagination—one who is inclined to take the world too literally—there is, perhaps, nothing better than a well-written fairy-story. It tends to awaken that faculty of the brain which gives life half its pleasure. What, again, can better counteract the thoughtless cruelty of childhood than such a story as Black Beauty? And yet, in the great essential of possibility, Black Beauty is a fairy tale.
Finally, to one whose mind is over-perplexed by studies or who is inclined to brood over the common occurrences of daily life, what can bring happier relief than some stirring narrative of adventure? Such a story at such a time, even if it has no moral aim, is not without its moral result.
In short, each of these forms of fiction has its own special and valuable function, and those who would make the best use of juvenile literature must recognize the fact and avail themselves of the principle.