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Welcome to the first Good Soil Podcast, where I discuss God's books, and ours... thoughts on St. Augustine, John Senior, and the importance of nature contact during childhood (and beyond)...

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If you have read Victorian literature, magazine articles, or fairy stories you are likely acquainted with Lancelot Speed. Illustrating the likes of The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights and many of Andrew Lang’s famous fairy stories, Speed used his self-taught skills to bring the drama, emotion, and action off the page. In an era when visual art forms were changing and evolving at a supersonic rate, Speed stayed true to his name and kept pace with the times. He was able to adapt to new art mediums and the shifting demands of the public’s taste in art.

Lancelot Speed’s life spanned the years from 1860 through the very last day of 1931. He was born into a wealthy family, the youngest son of a lawyer, and attended Rugby School. He was admitted to Clare College, Cambridge and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1885. Despite this education, he had no formal training in art whatsoever.

Speed’s first professional foray into the world of art was as an illustrator, mostly in black and white. Many of his pieces are still-life ornamentation for chapter openers—pots, daggers, or tree branches as seen in Eric Brighteyes, an epic Viking novel by H. Rider Haggard published in 1890.

However, Speed’s true talent becomes apparent in his dramatic depictions of people and events. Illustrating primarily stories involving fantasy or adventure, Speed’s full-page illustrations capture moments in action. His combination of delicate detail, dramatic lighting, and freezing motion just at the right moment evoke tension and drama in a way that predestined the silent movies to come later in his life. The hero dangling perilously from a cliff, a fatal blow about to be dealt, the instant before a curtain is drawn back to reveal its secrets—Speed’s illustrations urge the reader along in the story. But all of his talent for drama and moment would be nothing if he were not at his core simply a beautiful artist, with an eye for rendering soft fabrics, rippling water, and vivacious faces.

In addition to illustrating books, Speed contributed his art to many magazines of his time including The Illustrated London News, The English Illustrated Magazine, and The Graphic. The Illustrated London News was a world-first for featuring so many illustrations and had a large influence over other magazines in both England and America. By sharing his contributions to these periodicals in this pivotal era, Speed helped shape modern journalism and the visual nature of journalistic storytelling as it is today. The preferred technique for commercial, mass-produced illustrations at the time was line engraving, a method that complemented Speed’s style of fine delicate lines and dramatic shading.

However, as new technologies emerged Speed segued his artistic talents to match. Silent films became the entertainment of the day and Speed directed several early British films including adaptations of stories that he had previously illustrated. We find Speed, again, working with H. Rider Haggard on the movie version of his novel She. Speed is credited as the designer of this 1916 silent film. Speed also directed The Lady of the Lake from Sir James Thomas Knowles’s The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights for which he had provided 20 illustrations in both black and white and color.

Speed carved out a niche for himself in wartime cinema as one of the earliest animators. He used a stop-motion “lightning” technique to entertain silent film audiences with General John French routing the enemy during WWI. This culminated with his work Britain’s Effort in 1918 before audiences began to tire of the war genre.

Although we do not have a great deal of insight into why and how Speed first embarked on a career in art, we do have a window into this thought process about some of his specific art. Illustrator’s Notes to the 9th edition of Knowles’s The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights, the first edition that included Speed’s illustrations, provide a fascinating glimpse into his deliberate and well-researched stylization. He notes how the original author of the King Arthur tale, Sir Thomas Malory, had described the story’s sixth-century armor, landscape, dress, and weapons in a contemporary style befitting Malory’s fifteen-century world. The illustrations that accompanied that original version, likewise, depicted these described scenes with a style almost 1,000 years out of place.

Rather than becoming a stickler for historical accuracy in details, Speed made a conscious decision to readapt Malory’s fifteen-century look. But, he updated it still further with his own distinctly Victorian flare. Speed, in essence, reimagined the original reimagination of the look of Sir Arthur, his valiant knights, and his surroundings to complement Knowles’s new version. He gave modern young readers a fantastical yet relatable vision of a story from classical antiquity viewed through a medieval lens with just the faintest gloss of contemporary elements.

Though he blazed trails in many art genres and contributed to several significant works, Speed is best known today for his illustrations for Andrew Lang’s fairy story books. Lang and his wife authored a series of 25 collections of stories for children, the best known of which are the dozen “colored” fairy stories, so named because each collection was named for a different colored fairy. It seems an irony that Speed is best known for his work on these collections since he is credited with so few of them. You can find him as co-illustrator on The Red Fairy Book, The Blue Poetry Book, and a few others. However, another illustrator, H.J. Ford, takes the lion’s share of credit for Lang’s illustrations, while much of Speed’s more significant contributions to literature and film go little noticed.

Speed died in Kent on December 31, 1931, at age 71. Despite having been born into wealth, his estate was valued at little over £265. Whether he would have defined his lifelong art career as successful or not isn’t known. What we can say is that Speed did successfully navigate a period of time when art mediums, technology, and the public’s demands were changing at a never-before-seen pace. Speed’s illustrations were timeless then and even more so today as they continue to delight modern readers 100 years later.

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Vida Mercer is a writer, writing coach, and homeschool consultant. She loves sharing her never-stop-learning lifestyle from NorCal where she lives with her husband and daughters.

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Sometime around the summer of 2018, while compiling a digital collection of the good books that every child should read, I began toying with the idea of creating a monthly digest of some of these stories and poems from those authors whose work has entered into the public domain. I’ve been collecting the files since July of 2009 as time allowed, guided by John Senior’s list in an appendix to his book “The Death of Christian Culture.” It is a labor of love, and not without a commitment of time and attention. It is such a vast treasure that there would be no problem choosing seasonally appropriate content each month for years without duplication, I thought to myself.

And the artwork! No need to hire an art director when the time period from which these books are drawn also knew the brilliant touch of some of the greatest children’s book illustrators in history.

But who would be the audience? I knew from experience that within the homeschooling movement there are quite a few who use or leaning toward using a classical curriculum. The good books are a solid foundation for such an education, starting in the nursery and winding through young adulthood and beyond. But in reality? These books are for everyone, and everyone should read them. And so, the audience is endless.

They are the cultural inheritance of the West. We ignore or dismiss them at our peril, for they form sort of a collective memory that should be cherished and passed on. They put spurs to the fiery horse of a child’s imagination if he or she is allowed to ponder them in the quiet spaces of the day, and act them out bodily in song, in conversation with others, and outdoors during playtime.

Each month I’ll be adding seasonally appropriate stories and poems, with a bit of music sprinkled over everything. In addition, I’ll be posting my own musings about connections between the stories, poems, and songs. One example is Care to Push the Can About? from this month’s offerings. It is deeply satisfying to find connections and common threads among stories and songs.

Once in Good Soil, you’ll see that the content is broken up into the age categories John Senior adopted: The nursery, grade school, adolescent, and young adult. These distinctions refer to the reading and not the listening level of the child. None of the content is untoward if you will. You can read these stories and poems to your children, and they should have no problem understanding them to the extent their intellect is engaged at their age level. I’ll also be experimenting with narrating some of the works, and possibly adding a podcast. We shall see…

Whether the stories, songs, and poems are complete or excerpts in the case of long-form fiction, each entry will include a link to the complete book on my free ISSUU site.

These stories are meant to be read aloud, as a glorious act of defiance against the televisions and gadgets against which they compete. Many families have instituted “family game night” where the boards come out and everyone enjoys a few rounds of Clue, Scattergories, or even checkers and chess.

Why not have a family story night each week, using Good Soil as a starting point? John Senior would have called it an experiment in merriment. It might become everyone’s favorite family activity. One can hope.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodsoilmagazine.substack.com

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“I have come to cast Fire upon the earth, and would I that it were already Kindled!”

Our Lord wasn’t talking about pre-empting the Jeff Bezos line of eBook readers. Jesus’ subject matter was a bit more compelling. But since we’re now talking about eReaders, let’s chat about the proper use of technology.

Good Soil is a resource promoting John Senior’s vision of restoring Christian culture. We promote what he termed the thousand good books that every child should read. So while it’s out of my lane to give you a TED talk on kids and tech…

Hear me out anyway, okay?

There is a popular saying. “I need to be able to track my child, and giving them a mobile phone is the best way to do that.” It’s called an argument of convenience. The kid that gets a new phone will find it convenient, too. For more reasons than you may imagine.

Once you give them access to the world of TikTok, Snapchat, Line, Tinder, you will be untying the line securing them to the solid dock of childhood. You will set them adrift on an angry sea of images and ideas they do not have the maturity to navigate.

They will get solicited and unsolicited video calls with people you don’t know. Other tech-addicted kids will begin asking them to do things that will confuse or scare them. With constant pressure, many of them will give in. Even if they don’t, they will have emotional scars they can’t even name. It won’t be long before the onslaught of rebellion against your parental authority begins. Such rebellion normally begins in the middle teen years.

But there will be few opportunities for you to guide them in virtue at that point. The information they’re getting from the screen will tell them that you’re not the boss of them. That you don’t have a right to know what they’re doing online. It will knock you from your spot as the number one influence in their life. Advertising, pings, rings, text messages, private messages, instant messages will bombard them. You know, just like…

Ahem. Just like us.

Please understand that I’m not saying all technology is bad. Many of us need it for work, either at a workplace or working from home. We prefer it as our main way of keeping in touch with loved ones. We check our bank balances with it. We keep lists and ask questions and ask if we need to bring anything home from the store. There are thousands of apps and ten thousand reasons we could give for using them.

But guess how many compelling reasons there are for giving a child unrestricted access to a mobile device?

ZERO

Let me flesh out my point. Give your child an iPhone or similar Android device, and they’ll discover the good and the bad. Other children with phones will guide them to the juicy stuff. The edgy stuff. The evil stuff. And they will explore, both from pure and impure motives. Kids are curious. You will forfeit control over whether the content shares your worldview.

Your child will become secretive with their tech

Several companies have created apps whose messages self-implode after an hour or so. Untrackable. Untraceable. Your kids will love it because you won’t be able to scroll across something they shouldn’t have said or read. Somewhere they shouldn’t have gone, or someone they shouldn’t have been talking to.

This freedom, once given, is painful or impossible to retrieve. It’s like trying to squeeze the proverbial toothpaste back into the tube. Don’t believe me?

If you have a child that already has a mobile device, try this:

Tell them that you now have a portal you can go to that lets you see every website they’ve visited. The phone number of every person they’ve talked to. That you can read all their text messages, and link to every video they’ve viewed. Tell them you’re going to start using it.

What will be the reaction?

Shock. Rage. Tears. Disbelief.

Here’s an unpopular truth:

You have the grave responsibility to track every aspect of your child’s online presence. That doesn’t make you controlling, it makes you their protector. If they don’t agree, you’re already losing in the battle for their soul.

Most of my employers have made me sign an agreement. It says that says they have the right to track every key tap and mouse click I make while using their technology. It is a standard business practice. Your employer has the right to read every email you send. They have the right to record every website you go to. Every instant message you send. Every phone number you call. They pay a team of specialists to keep the network safe and to watch what employees are doing on the computers and mobile devices.

Think of yourself as your children’s IT department

You’re already their Uber, Merry Maids, personal chef, laundry service, pet sitter, and referee. You should also be your child’s IT department.

John Senior said to smash the television.

That was a vivid image when he penned it back in the 1980s. The TV was the only screen in the house. Today we’re not talking about the TV, we’re talking about screens. They’re everywhere. Yes, the TV. The home computer. The mobile phone. The tablet. They’re on billboards when we drive and on the sides of buildings. They’re in the pumps at the gas stations. I’ve seen them at eye level above the urinals in several restaurants’ bathrooms.

There is no single screen we can sacrifice as the scapegoat.

And yet, as I say again, I am an advocate for the thousand good books.

Here’s the rub

Most of these books have been in the public domain for decades. They are royalty-free. Newer technology allows them to be digitally imaged and stored. This way, future generations can enjoy them, even after the paper copies have yellowed and turned to dust.

How do you get these digitized books? How do you get the wonderful illustrations drawn by gifted artists, into the hands of real boys and girls?

I’m building this website, with all its resources as one possible answer to that question. But getting these books into the hands of children requires handing them something akin to what I railed about above. With a caveat.

One solution

I can’t solve all the world’s problems, but I have a pretty good handle on this one. Let’s summarize:

• Giving your children unfiltered digital devices will rob them of their childhood. It will introduce them to a host of evils that they aren’t equipped to deal with.

• You have an opportunity to get the thousand good books into your children’s hands. These books will form their imaginations in healthy ways. With guidance, they can instill virtue in a way that even religious education cannot touch. Through the power of poetry and storytelling.

Mobile phones are horrible devices on which to read books. If your child has a device, the primary reason should be for reading the thousand good books.

Such a device should allow them to sit in a comfortable position while reading (instead of slouched forward in front of the home computer or laptop). The answer is a tablet with muscular parental controls.

But not any old tablet

Let’s take a price-filtered look at what is generally available. We’re talking about child-sized hands here so let’s keep the screens around the 8 to 10 inch diameter range.

UPDATE

• iPad Pro, 11-inch screen, $800 base price

• iPad Mini, 7.69-inch screen, $500 base price

• All new iPad, 10.2-inch screen, $330 base price

• Android Galaxy Tab 7, 10-inch screen, $230 base price

• Kindle Fire HD, 10-inch screen, $150 base price

• Kindle Fire 8, 8-inch screen, $60 base price

My picks are the new iPad 10.2-inch base model and the new Kindle Fire HD with a 10-inch screen. My previous pick was the $60 Eight inch Kindle Fire, but after tweaking the display controls on the thousand good books on ISSUU, screen size is an issue. For a truly immersive reading experience, the eight inch screen is simply too small, and the 10 inch screen is just right.

I have also added a recommendation for the base model iPad (not iPad Pro) for two reasons. Form factor plays into it, as another solid 10-inch screen offering, but the price point is also in affordable for many. Add to that the upgraded parental controls that Apple is now offering, and this is a solid choice.

I will put up another post soon going into greater detail on how parental controls on both the iPad and Kindle Fire devices.

Some of these tablets are faster than others. Some blazingly so. Not that it’s going to make any difference for the purpose we have in mind. Your children will be primarily be reading books on them, and that doesn’t consume a lot of resources.

At the present time, I cannot recommend Android tablets other than Kindle Fire because of the lack of depth in parental controls.

What I love about the Kindle Fire is that there is a double layer of parental control. First, there are Parental Controls themselves. But especially for younger users, there is the Amazon Kids app.

With these, you can:

• Block social media apps or only allow them to contact people you choose

• Block access to the Amazon store

• Block email, calendar, and contacts except for those you name

• Block the internet browser or only allow access to sites you have approved

• Track and report your child’s activity

• Block camera use

• Restrict location services

• Restrict access to wifi

• Restrict access to video content

Also, there are robust controls that allow you to:

• Set a curfew during which the tablet won’t work

• Choose how many hours the child can use the tablet each day

• Set timed reading goals

Also, Amazon Kids only allows it to display the content and services you’ve allowed. The interface is clean and straightforward. There are no settings with which the child can fiddle. The books you’ve selected, the videos you’ve okayed, the music you’ve chosen are all accessible from one page.

The proclivities and spending habits of One of the Richest Men in the World aside, Amazon created the ebook universe and its first device. No offense to Project Gutenberg or The Internet Archive. But for our purposes, this Kindle is, as kids nowadays say, “fire.”

Back to the books

Let’s come back around and talk about the thousand good books again. I’ve been spending a fair amount of time uploading PDF versions of these books to the website. Click on the title of the book. It’ll take you to the PDF in a flip-book format.

But for those who find those hard to read, I’ve also linked each individual good book author’s name to the Kindle version of “the complete works of…” that author. They all have hyperlinked tables of content. Many of them contain the original artwork that was in the original. I’m doing this to make it easier for you to set up a comprehensive good books library on your kindle.

Another great thing Amazon offers is family book sharing. Your spouse and your children will get access to each book for the price of one download. Since these are almost all public domain ebooks, most of them cost $1 or $2 each for “the complete works.” And you won’t buy them all at once.

I’m striving to ensure that you have several budget-friendly options. But I’m also trying to help you protect their imaginations and their souls. So, with these suggestions, you will control what apps and activities are on your family’s Kindles. With the tightest controls, it won’t do anything but let them read books. The power to parent remains in your grasp.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodsoilmagazine.substack.com

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Call me a book nerd, but I love reading book prefaces and introductions. There I said it. Glad I got that off my chest.

Authors and reviewers often leave gold nuggets in these notes to the reader. Breaking out of the structure of the story, they spend a few moments with us like a friend enjoying coffee at the kitchen table. At least the good ones feel that way. Take for instance the introduction to Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle.

Hugh Walpole wrote that the book is the work of a genius, and he gives a compelling argument. But he also said something universal. Something that speaks to good literature as a whole, and it is something I hope to emulate here at Good Soil:

Don’t be afraid to dive into these books. There is poetry here. Fantasy, humor, and a bit of sadness. You’ll find friends here that you won’t find anywhere else, not only in the characters living inside the classic works but in the authors themselves.

Understand, also, that the art of the introduction is a true art form, though generally disregarded by all but the most assiduous souls. It need not be so. As one who considers himself a lifelong student of the good books, I generally take joy at reading introductions, prefaces, afterwords, and even marginalia that accompany the digitally scanned copies of these works that have entered the public domain and been uploaded by Project Gutenberg, The Internet Archive, Google Books, and the like.

You’ll find plenty of that here, like a child’s macaroni necklace around its mother’s neck. Some versions of the books archived here are so heavily marked that they must be taken “as is” though for the most part I do my best to “clean them up” and make them presentable in public.

One such case you’ll soon notice in the Nursery section is the case of Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children, in which some bad child applied his crayons to many of the drawings. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but it continues to make me chuckle.

And so the book continues down history’s lane clad in hues of Crayola blue and green from some unknown artist. I’ll take it that way. It adds humor to history.

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The woody paths on which I trod in childhood now are gone;

There are no feet to part the peat or wind the hills along.

Where muddy sneakers once were laid beside the mudroom door,

there now exists a gaming chair beside a PS4.

The wild imaginations that had schemed beside the creek,

where small child hands and strong young backs

once stacked the dam-stones sink...

Beneath a lethargy so large, deep cannot call to deep,

but all the untouched wonders shout the mysteries they keep.

“Oh, say it isn’t so,” I say, “It isn’t so” returns the rack.

The rocks, the rills, the roots and hills cry out as one “come back!”

“Come back and keep us company.”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodsoilmagazine.substack.com