Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/23

are apparently regarded as quite a distinct class from boy-books. This shepherding and patronage of the young idea has attained appalling dimensions in the United States, and one of its most awful results has been the production of the phenomenally impertinent American boys and girls one meets on board Atlantic steamships, in hotels, and even in the streets of London and Edinburgh. Loud-voiced, assertive, impatient, quarrelsome, unlovable, and generally offensive youngsters, who are the production of graded schools, ’snappy' literature, boastful school histories, and unbridled licence at home. The marvel is what becomes of these youthful and genteel American hooligans in after-life, because outside the vulgar, go-ahead commercial circles, one seldom meets among adults with the awful manners so characteristic of the American child. All this may be taken as a warning against forcing the minds of children by artificial educational processes. If this grading of books were executed on thoroughly scientific lines, it might be possible to regard it with some interest, but the mere grouping of books by some mature mind into grades considered suitable for children five years old, ten years old, and so on, is a positive delusion. No allowance is made in such lists for variation in the intelligence of children, and the American graded lists of books are on a par with English Elementary School standards as regards their adaptability to special cases. One can imagine the kind, but watchful, American lady-librarian saying to a boy