FORT SMITH NEW ERA, April 8, 1865, p. 1, c. 4
A Great Bane of Our Youth.—The superintendent of the public schools in Providence, R.
I., says it is the sensation story papers and the dime novels, and not the study of our schools, that
is undermining the health and corrupting the morals of our youth. A mass of crude, puerile and
often objectionable literature furnished by the circulating libraries and periodical depots, is
eagerly devoured by pupils of the public schools, exciting the brain and nervous system to the
highest intensity, and arousing all their worst passions.