DANGEROUS PRECOSITY

Twenty-five and fifty years ago, on Sunday afternoon, when next week's lesson had been learned and tea time was still hours and hours away, all good children sat primly in straight backed chairs, reading the "Lives of the Sainta" or conning the dreary pages which told of the peregrinations of Rolle and his tutor. The moving pictures had not yet been heard of, and the thought of Sabbath baseball games was still locked in the imagination of the hopelessly depraved. Reading was the universal in door sport, prescribed and supervised by parent and pulpit.

Nowadays, however, the routine has changed perceptibly; after breakfast the question of the precocious daughter is no longer, "Mamma, ought I be starting for Sunday school?", but "Hey! Daddy's swiped my nibble!" The college education of parents, too, which in spite of Mr. Bertrand Russell's opinion to the contrary is genuinely liberal, has created an atmosphere of surprising toleration and intelligence in the home if they wish to read poetry on the day of rest, instead of exercising, modern children, resort no longer to Lewis Carroll and R. L. S. They turn for mental nourishment to the subtle lyrics of Miss Nathalia Crane, aged ten or eleven, who has just published "The Janitor's Boy, and Other Poems", to the sound of subdued cheers from the press of the country.

The unprejudiced observer wishes nothing but success to Miss Crane, and to any others of a like age who are planning an early career of letters; but it is only right, though possibly unkind, to point out the ominous fact that most early-blossoming geniuses come to a swift and untimely end. The field of music contains the few exceptions. The annals of neo-literature are crowded with the names and obituaries of those whose divine flame turned out to be a flash in the pan. Miss Crane should consider the sad case of Daisy Ashford, and lose no time in procuring a bushel basket.