American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1864-01-27
Educational department.
Reading Good and Bad Books.
BY HENRY WOOD HILL.

utterance to ideas in silence. Dead
men open the eyes of the living" Books
as well as men make known to us our OBJ
legations, the failings common to human
beings and peculiar to ourselves, the diff
culties to be encountered, the duties to be
/ performed, the distresses to be endured,
and the pleasures to be realized by u.s.
! With books as well as with men, we be-
coue accustomed to reflection, acquaint-
ed with the beauty of virtue and the de-
formity of vice. Men, in their commu-
nication with each other, address them
selves to those passions and affections of
the mind that are conducive either to
happiness or unhappiness. Good words
are the incentives to energy and industry.
Should they not therefore be carefully
studied? ? In books, as we'll as with men,
We may confer with genius and learning,
But. books have an advantage over men,
in that they enable one to contemplate at
leisure the finished productions of mature
reflection. whilst many of us are not en-
dowedswith memory sufficiently capable
of retaining the exact words ofthe speak
cr. Moreover, a person is seldom ena.
bled to speak at once so much to the pur-
pose as he would write after consideration
There is something peculiarly beautiful
and soothing in the manner in which the
silent processes of the mind are brought
into action when we are, reading atten-
lively. We must of necessity derive
some benefit. What can be more beauti-
full than improving the vigcr and sensi-
bilities of the mind, expanding the rea-
soning faculties, strengthening the judg,
ment, facilitating the utteranee of ideas !?
Are these benefits more easily attained
than a careful course of good reading?
Superior books of the present day are
few and cannot effect degree Of good at
all counterbalancing the vast amount of
evil resulting from the general perusal of
inferior books, aggravated as that evil is a
thousand fold by the prominent position
they occupy, and when their sale is so
much promoted by the public.
When perusing book, we are apt to
apply the ideas therein contained to our
selves, to identf fly ourselves with those
-spoken of, and more or less to allow our
selves to be actuated by the Interpretation
Of their ideas. Our preiudices are some
what blasted by that which we have just
read. Novel readers rarely. if ever form
a correct estimate of life and manners
They enormously imagine that the ideals
portrayed in the novel are taken from re-
aiity-that the conduct of persons with
whom they are thrown in contact will be
similar to the writer's prototype. The
mock representations Of nature are recog-
nized as false when merely traversing the
common walk Of life.
We cannot but admit that occasionally
some benefit, intellectual or even moral,
may be derived from reading a novel
Dr. Jackson declared that he never looked
into a book 50 utterly valueless, but that
something profitable might be extracted
from it, The question is, is this some
thing worth while hunting out? Dr.
Johnson was a man of extraordinary Ca
pabilities, and in a most wonderful man
ner found time for looking into almost ev-
erything. The majority of us have not
the capability of treating with time so
successfully as DR., johnson had and
evenifwe had we should use it .comparitive-
ly speaking, with br uifing advantage in
reading books which contain little knowl-
edge. 1t is well, therefore, to go 10 the
fountain-head at once-to consult those
books where there is a certainty of finding
knowledge, and to consider inferior books
as chatf; remembering the words Of Bas-
sanio respecting Gratiano, His reasons
are as two grains of wheat, hid in two
bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day
ere you find them and when you have
them they are not worth the search"
Persons who read inferior books acquire
a distaste for superior books. They false
y imagine the Laser to be too learned and
abstruse, though the language and man.
ner in which they are worded may be the
most simple and the least complicated, and
require the least degree Of study to un-
derstand them. A novel appeals but
slightly, if ever to the Christians feel
ings and principles. The author. as far
as his novel is concerned is too much oc
cupled with the spirit of wordliness to
think of morality. He alludes not to re-
ligion, becuase it is distasteful to his sup
porters, and hindrance to the sale of his
book.
We cannot conceive anything more de-
lightful or more promising ofreward than
reading books the authors of which are
regarded as the masters, repositories, and