Children and their books — Background and Themes

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Authors: Penniman, James Hosmer, 1860-1931 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Children's literature; Education Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 9,101

Reading time 40 min

Text sections 1

The catalog record for Children and their books — Background and Themes provides practical reading context through 9,101 words, 40 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 26.7 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Children's literature,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #22604

An early 20th-century guide to children's reading, emphasizing developmental stages, the role of imagination, and the moral responsibility of selecting books, with specific advice on boys' and girls' literature.

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CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS

BY JAMES HOSMER PENNIMAN, LITT. D.

SYRACUSE, N. Y. C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER

CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS

The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this law that President Eliot thinks that

"the temperament, physical constitution, mental aptitudes, and moral quality of a boy are all well determined by the time he is 18 years old."

Great waste of the child's time and mental energy in the precious early years is caused by disregard of the way in which his mind unfolds. Not only are children set at work for which they are not yet fitted, but frequently they are kept at occupations which are far below what they might profitably engage in. The child should be guided, not driven; to force his mind is an educational crime. Long continued attention and concentration are injurious, but by using tact a great deal may be accomplished without strain.

At first the aim should be not so much to fill the mind with knowledge as to develop the powers as they are ready for it, and to cultivate the ability to use them. The plasticity of the child's mind is such that a new impression may be erased quickly by a newer one; his character receives a decided bent only through repeated impressions of the same kind. The imaginative faculty is one of the earliest to appear, and a weakness of our educational systems is the failure to realize its importance and to pay sufficient attention to its development. It is well known that imagination is the creative power of the mind which gives life to all work, so that without it Newton would never have found the law of gravitation, nor Columbus have discovered America. The world of make-believe is filled with delight for the small child. He loves stories of imaginary adventure that he can act out in his play,

"Now with my little gun I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back. I see the others far away, As if in fire-lit camp they lay; And I, like to an Indian scout, Around their party prowled about."

Cultivate his imagination by helping the child to image what he has read. Let us play that we are sailing with Columbus in a little ship over the great green ocean. When we look far off from the top of a wave we see nothing but sky and white-capped water; all around us are angry faces and angry waves.

It is easy to work on the emotions of a little child and thoughtless persons may find it amusing but it is a serious matter, for it has an injurious effect upon his nerves. Ghost stories and books which inspire fear of the supernatural often do much harm to imaginative children.

The boundless curiosity of the child may be aroused and stimulated so that he gets to know himself and the world about him in a way that furnishes him with constant and delightful employment. The growth of his mind is rapid and healthful, because he is reaching out to comprehend and verify and apply to his own purposes the knowledge that he derives from books and that which he obtains from observation. It is not easy to realize the ignorance of children. Dr. G. Stanley Hall found by experiments with a large number of six-year-olds in Boston, that 55 percent did not know that wooden things are made from trees. The world is strange to them; they must grope their way, they are attracted by the bright, the flashy, the sensational, and their tastes will develop in these directions unless they are taught better. Grown-ups estimate in terms of previous experience; the child has had little previous experience to which to refer. Edward Thring says:

"The emptiness of a young boy's mind is often not taken into account, at least emptiness so far as all knowledge in it being of a fragmentary and piecemeal description, nothing complete. It may well happen that an intelligent boy shall be unable to understand a seemingly simple thing, because some bit of knowledge which his instructor takes it for granted he possesses, and probably thinks instinctive, is wanting to fill up the whole."

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James Hosmer Penniman opens Children and Their Books with a firm assertion: the most vital educational problem is how to use a child’s early years, because “his susceptibility to formative influences diminishes” with age. He quotes President Eliot to claim that temperament and moral quality are largely set by age eighteen. This framing—that childhood is a narrow window for shaping character—drives the entire work. Penniman’s prose is direct and prescriptive, mixing pedagogical theory with practical warnings. He repeatedly insists that forcing a child’s mind is “an educational crime,” and that the aim should be to develop powers as they appear, not to fill the mind with facts.

Imagination as the Creative Power

Penniman places imagination at the center of early education, calling it “the creative power of the mind which gives life to all work.” He argues that without it, Newton would not have found gravitation nor Columbus discovered America. This is not a vague endorsement of fantasy; he ties imagination directly to intellectual achievement. To cultivate it, he advises adults to help children “image what he has read”—for example, by pretending to sail with Columbus, describing “angry faces and angry waves.” The excerpt includes a short poem about a child playing Indian scout with a toy gun, illustrating how make-believe can be grounded in action. Penniman warns, however, that ghost stories and supernatural tales can harm imaginative children, a caution that reveals his belief that imagination must be directed, not indulged.

The Danger of Inane Trash

Penniman is blunt about the quality of children’s reading material. He claims that “the market is flooded with books ranging from the trivial to the harmful” and that many children “stultify their minds” with quantity over quality. He cites librarian Caroline M. Hewins, who estimated that ninety out of one hundred public-school children read only simple stories, and only one in a hundred has a natural love of great literature. Penniman’s own voice is equally sharp: he condemns books in which children die, are cruelly treated, or offer advice to elders. His concern is not just aesthetic but moral—he believes that forming an impression on “the white page of the child’s mind” is a grave responsibility, and that making sin attractive in a book has far-reaching consequences.

Boys, Girls, and the Books They Need

Penniman draws a sharp distinction between what boys and girls should read. Boys, he says, read for deeds, not descriptions; they identify with a central hero and want stories they can act out. He recommends Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Brown, and Captains Courageous as models of “moral worth expressed through physical activity.” Girls, by contrast, should read books that “exalt the sweet home virtues.” He warns against cheap society stories that give “false ideas of life” and encourage selfishness. This gendered advice reflects early twentieth-century norms, but it also shows Penniman’s practical bent: he wants books that match a child’s developmental stage and interests, not a one-size-fits-all curriculum.

Action Over Precept

Penniman ends his argument with a strong emphasis on action. He quotes Herbert Spencer: “Not by precept… but only through action… can a moral habit be formed.” He also cites Edward Thring, who said that boys become brave not by being told to be so, but by being “nurtured in a brave and hardy way.” Penniman applies this to reading: after a child is interested in a book’s deeds, the adult should have him “do something of a similar character” to impress the lesson. This is not a passive reading guide; it is a call for active, embodied learning. The book itself is a manual for parents and teachers, urging them to guide children toward literature that can be lived, not just consumed.

Penniman’s voice is that of a concerned educator, not a literary critic. He writes for adults who select children’s books, and his advice is concrete: avoid fear-inducing stories, choose classics over thrillers, and match books to a child’s developmental stage. Readers should expect a prescriptive tone and a focus on moral formation rather than aesthetic appreciation. The book is a period piece, but its core argument—that reading shapes character and that adults must choose wisely—remains relevant.

I keep thinking about that old guide to children’s books, how gently it weighed imagination against moral duty. It reminded me of the quiet way a place can shape a person’s thoughts. That feeling resurfaced while reading An American at Oxford — not the facts, but the lingering sense of watching someone grow into their own questions. An American at Oxford — Context and Discussion stays with you like that.