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Editorial
June 2, 1881
West Jersey Pioneer
Bridgeton, Cumberland County, New Jersey
What is this article about?
This editorial promotes the duty of family heads to provide good reading materials, emphasizing that it educates minds, shelters from vice, and transforms ignorant households into intelligent, virtuous ones, fostering ambition and community usefulness.
Clipping
OCR Quality
98%
Excellent
Full Text
HOME READING
One of the most pleasant and noble duties of the head of the family is to furnish its members with good reading. In the times which are past, it was considered enough to clothe and feed and shelter a family. This was the sum of parental duty; but lately it has been found out that wives and children have minds, and so it has become a necessity to educate the children and furnish reading for the whole household; it has been found out that the mind wants its food as well as the body, and that it wants to be sheltered from the pitiless storms of error and vice by the guarding and friendly roof of intelligence and virtue.
An ignorant family in our days is an antiquated institution. It smells of the musty past; it is a dark spot which the light of the modern sun of intelligence has not reached.
Let good reading go into a home, and the very atmosphere of that home gradually changes. It becomes clearer, purer, more cheerful and happy; the boys begin to grow ambitious; to talk about men, places, principles, books, the past and the future; the girls begin to feel a new life opening to them in knowledge, duty and pleasure; and so the family changes, and out from its members will go intelligent men and women to fill honorable places and be useful members of the community. Let the torch of intelligence be lighted in every household; let the old and young vie with each other in introducing new and useful topics of investigation, and in cherishing a love of reading, study and improvement.-Ex.
One of the most pleasant and noble duties of the head of the family is to furnish its members with good reading. In the times which are past, it was considered enough to clothe and feed and shelter a family. This was the sum of parental duty; but lately it has been found out that wives and children have minds, and so it has become a necessity to educate the children and furnish reading for the whole household; it has been found out that the mind wants its food as well as the body, and that it wants to be sheltered from the pitiless storms of error and vice by the guarding and friendly roof of intelligence and virtue.
An ignorant family in our days is an antiquated institution. It smells of the musty past; it is a dark spot which the light of the modern sun of intelligence has not reached.
Let good reading go into a home, and the very atmosphere of that home gradually changes. It becomes clearer, purer, more cheerful and happy; the boys begin to grow ambitious; to talk about men, places, principles, books, the past and the future; the girls begin to feel a new life opening to them in knowledge, duty and pleasure; and so the family changes, and out from its members will go intelligent men and women to fill honorable places and be useful members of the community. Let the torch of intelligence be lighted in every household; let the old and young vie with each other in introducing new and useful topics of investigation, and in cherishing a love of reading, study and improvement.-Ex.
What sub-type of article is it?
Education
Moral Or Religious
Social Reform
What keywords are associated?
Home Reading
Family Education
Literacy
Moral Improvement
Intelligence
Virtue
Social Progress
Editorial Details
Primary Topic
Importance Of Providing Good Reading In The Home
Stance / Tone
Exhortatory Promotion Of Family Literacy And Moral Improvement
Key Arguments
Head Of Family Should Furnish Good Reading As A Noble Duty
Past Parental Duties Insufficient; Now Must Educate Minds Against Error And Vice
Ignorant Family Is Outdated And Untouched By Modern Intelligence
Good Reading Purifies Home Atmosphere, Inspires Ambition In Boys And New Life In Girls
Leads To Intelligent Members Contributing To Community
Light The Torch Of Intelligence In Every Household Through Reading And Study