For our part, we may as well confess that our sympathies go out undividedly toward that important class who are averse to Nonsense,--more particularly _book_-nonsense,--which they can't stand, and won't stand, and there's an end of it. There is something exceedingly winning, to us, in that sturdy sense, that thirst for mathematical precision, that impatience of theory, that positive and self-reliant--we don't mind saying, somewhat dogmatical--air, that sternness of feature, thinness of lip, and coldness of eye, which belong to the best examples. We respect even the humbler ones; for they at least hate sentiment, they do not comprehend or approve of humor, and they never relish wit. What does a taste for these qualities indicate, but an idle and frivolous mind, devoted to trifles: and how fatal is such a taste, in the pursuit of wealth and respectability!
Fantastic people have much to say of the "affections," the "graces and amenities of life," "soul-culture," and the like. We cannot too deeply deplore their fatuity, in giving prominence to such abstractions. As for children, the most we can concede is, that they have a natural--though, of course, depraved--taste for stories: yes, we will say that this fondness is irrepressible. But, what we really must insist on, is, that in gratifying that fondness, you give them _true_ stories. Where is the carefully trained and upright soul that would not reject "JACK, the Giant-killer," or "Goody Two-shoes," if it could substitute (say, from "New and True Stories for Children,") a tale as thrilling as this:
"When I was a boy, I said to my uncle one day, 'How did you get your finger cut off?' and he said, 'I was chopping a stick one evening, and the hatchet cut off my finger.'"
Blessings, blessings on the man who thus embalmed this touching incident! Who does not see that the reign of fiction is over!
That the parental portion of the public may judge what the future has in store for their little ones (who, we hope, will be men and women far sooner than their ancestors were,) we present them with a fragrant nosegay (pshaw! we mean, a shovel-full) of samples, commending them, should they wish for more, to the nearest Sabbath-school library.