“The Child is father of the Man,” wrote William Wordsworth, marveling at the enchantment of the child’s early experience and delight in play. The formative period of childhood cultivates in the young a love of life, a sense of adventure, and an imaginative world filled with wonder. As the child in Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden [...]
James Boswell’s biography, The Life of Johnson, portrays a distinguished man of letters after whom a whole literary period was named: The Age of Johnson. To read of Johnson’s life (1709-1784) is to learn of an eminent man of learning whose love of literature, passion for truth, and genius for writing achieved extraordinary works of excellence [...]
It is easy to be nice. But Tom Sawyer shows that it is demanding to be good—to speak the truth when it provokes enemies, to accept suffering for having integrity, and to risk danger to protect the innocent. As the saying goes, children can be “naughty or nice,” but naughty does not always mean bad [...]