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So you think there is too much violence for children on TV today?

This writer says you should have been around sixty years ago when

teachers have been concerning them-

selves over television and its influence on children. One of their anxieties has been the possible result from lapping up indis- criminately all -the crime and mayhem which are such popular {are among jiryeniles.

_ Perhaps this is the time for some of us grandparents to come forward with a word of cheer. When we were tender little twigs we were exposed to brooding horrors which make the wildest TV offerings of today look pallid. Those of us who attended public school around the turn of the century were intro- duced to the harsher side of life by way of the old Ontario Readers from which there was no escape.

Although it was the Ontario department of education which authorized these books, they were, with or without slight adaptations, recommended in provinces east and west. They werenot optional like TV. They were the prescribed gateway to literature, the means by which children were introduced to the joys of reading. Their tales of gruesome disaster and death were chosen with fiendish

skill, page after page. lesson after lesson, death upon death, all by authors of prestige

and exemplary personal character. .

It was enough to have left Canadian chil- dren with disordered minds and small hope of recovery——except that child minds don't dis- order easily. They build up their own re- sistance and are a lot tougher than one might think. At any rate, citizens who are now far advanced in years were nurtured on those old Ontario Readers and have weathered through. Is it too much to expect that youngsters of today will take TV in their'stride?

Now on TV programs, no matter how much bang-bang goes on, or how fierce the chase, there are always the good guys and the bad guys, with a nice moral lesson woven

through. The good guys win out and the bad guys get their come-uppance. Crime does not pay, though a great many people do seem to be giving it a try. In the ever-popular westerns the saddest thing is to see a fine horse bite the dust, but the scene moves along quickly to mere human killing. Occasionally. a good guy gets plugged, but always in de- fence of something noble, and pretty soon

came Beam ammo

I \0R quite some time new parents and

his son-rowing wife meets another exaxnple of sterling manhood. Right triumphs, plus a happy ending. The entranced juveniles are

left with the knowledge that the west is what it is today because all the bad guys were wiped out long ago and only the good guys have survived. ’

Statistics note that a dedicated TV fan may see 287 untimely deaths in the course of a week—-or is it 2,875?—not counting Indians. That sounds depressing, but grandpa can tell you that having to read about the lingering death of one golden-haired child, for page after page, can be a more powerful haunt than seeing 1,000 adults exit in a hail of lead.

On TV one rarely sees children exposed to undue suffering. The whole trend is to pre- sent childhood as a joyous state with adults taking the grief. In fact, the more elderly viewers would find it very refreshing if some wholesome, hearty cruelty were dealt out occasionally to arrogant young starlets. But the sponsors wouldn't stand for it. Child suffering is out.

On the other hand, those old readers were particularly addicted to the striking down of

The Star Weekly MAGAZINE. June 4. 1960