Reading

LAMARTINE’s mother wrote in her diary on June 19, 1801, “I was thinking again today about the danger of light reading. I believe that I would do well to refrain altogether from it; it would be a sacrifice at first, a sacrifice that would certainly please God since such reading is one of the most dangerous pleasures in the world. Besides, when I am taken up with this distracting kind of reading, serious and useful reading wearies and bores me; yet, I certainly need it to become capable of instructing my children. For their sakes I have finally decided to deprive myself of the pleasures of frivolous reading.”

Parents should exercise care in their own reading. They, too, must avoid all that could sully their souls and rob them of virtue. They can go even further and like Lamartine’s mother give up reading that consumes the precious time which could be spent in useful reading. One needs to know so many things to rear children! Making due allowance for needful and useful distractions, one ought always to choose reading matter that will enrich the mind and foster the qualities needed for the delicate ministry of parenthood.

What good fortune to be helped in advance by one’s children:

“For their sakes, I am finally decided to deprive myself of the pleasure of frivolous reading.”

But the parents‟ reading is not the only problem. There is another, the children’s reading. What great imprudence is evident in many families where all sorts of reviews, magazines, newspapers, and books definitely unfit for children are left lying about in their way; where unwise freedom of the library is granted and children can ferret out books that are often harmful to their morals and Christian convictions.

Jean Jacques Rousseau’s story is well known. Born a Calvinist of parents who could scarcely be called commendable, he met with nothing but disturbing examples in his early childhood; however, he manifested a singular purity in resisting all interior and exterior temptations to corruption. He became a Catholic later and felt himself drawn to the priesthood. But his superiors decided at the end of a few weeks that he definitely did not have the makings of a good priest in him.

A short time after he left the seminary he was perverted morally by his benefactor, Madame de Warrens, who by most culpable relations shamefully debased the youth she called “Little one” despite her claim of wanting to act as “Mother” to him.

Awakening to a realization of his condition, Rousseau wrote in 1738, “O my God, pardon the sins I have committed up to this day, all the evils into which I have fallen…. Accept my repentance, O God, …I will remember that You are the witness of all my actions…. I will be indulgent toward others, severe toward myself; I will resist temptations; I will live purely…. O my sovereign Master, I will spend my life in serving You.”

But unfortunately a library was opened to him and he “perused books with a sort of frenzy,” with no direction, no discernment. He fell under the influence of Diderot, and became a recruit for the Encyclopedists.

We know the rest. His story should incite us to serious thought. On what does the orientation of a life depend? An unlocked door, momentary forgetfulness, negligence—and a soul is perverted forever!

The conclusion is evident: Never to have bad books in the house. What good comes of them?

If for purposes of study or other reasons, books which might prove dangerous for the rest of the family are absolutely essential, they must always be kept in a locked place. Children are curious, so too are the help. Harm is quickly done!