Sunday-School Libraries. By Rev. Sanford H. Cobb [pp. 369-382]

Sunday-School Libraries.
dren should, from the same hands, receive gospel teaching and
the world's folly. It is too often the case, that in the Sabbath School literature the child first acquires that passion,
which, at last, becoming like a strong man, will be satisfied, if
in no other way, then by the filthy pruriency of many a vile
sheet or the criminal details of police-reports.
IL Now it may well be asked, and it is the object of this
discussion to ask, "What shall be done about this grave
matter?" And we confess it to be a truly difficult question to answer. The evils of the present system are naked
and open, but how to remove them is a thing not so easily
discerned.
(1.) As a matter of theory, we note a mistaken principle on
which many of the libraries are collected. It is found in the
common idea that what is pleasing to the present tastes of the
children, should be the controlling influence in selection. The
main idea of the Sabbath School is instruction, and the object
of instruction is improvement; and what does not tend to
these purposes is altogether aside from the legitimate sphere
of the Sunday School. It is no proper thing for a teacher to
leave the matter of teaching to the ignorant wishes of his
pupils. If a taste is low it should be elevated, and if a mind
is ignorant it should be educated. Such should be the aim of
all true teaching; but, instead of this, we too often are found
pandering to tastes which we ought to be ashamed to tolerate,
and, in place of correcting, confirming habits which are
deserving only of reprehension.
(2.) There should, then, be a more careful principle of selection. It is thus not a matter of little moment what the library
contains. A large number of volumes, to have which is a
comnmon ambition, is no compensation for deleterious qualities
in the books themselves. Better a hundred carefully selected,
than a thousand gotten together without oversight, and simply
to supply a craving. Children will read many things which
their eyes should never light on, and Sunday Schools, the
Church, should put into their hands only that which is good.
They will find quite enough of the opposite quality outside of
the school. But we are here met with a practical difficulty.
"The children will not read that which is best," say some. It
1871.]
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