The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-08-18
What People Read.

Among thirty thousand volumes in
the Mercantile Library at st. Louis,
there are, 1t is said, seventeen thousand
which are never called for by anybody.
This is pretty well for the st. Louis liz
brary, for it indicates that more than
one half of the books, seventeen thous-
and to wit, are of some positive value.
In other words, only thirteen thousand
are popular" works. 'Tis true, tits
pity, and pity tits tis true, that as the
average human being perversely desires
for his bodily food such substances as
with least nourishment provoke most
excitment of the palate; so in his men,
tai diet he is prone to desire "sensa-
ton" rather than improvement or
mental growth and health If essays
and homilies upon this subject would
produce reform, the reading world
would have been reformed long ago.
AS in many other attempted improve.
ments and refornations, no small dam
age to the cause they advocate has been
done by injudicious writers and lectur-
ers, clerical and lay. All fiction, all
works of imagination, everything but
hard facts, have been objected to, until
the careless listener or reader comes to
suppose that useful reading includes
only that which is dry and dull. Con-
sequently young people delight in flcti-
tious reading, as If it were a luxury Of
sin /; and the zest of disobedience is
added to the other pleasures of fiction.
One cause of the absolute freshness
of too many books is found in the fact
that their authors know nothing. There
arc works of Imagination, and the
reader will recall many of them, which
stimulate inquiry into the history both
of literature and events; and which,
while they confound an ignorant reader
with his ignorance, excite one who
knows something to desire to know
more. When to the understanding of
of what you read general knowledge is
necessary, or when to follow fictitious
author you must investigate facts, no
small good may arise from his works as
part of education. But writer who
knows nothing can state nothing and
can suggest nothing. His themes and
incidents are divided between the COM
mon-place and the unnaturrl and
readers of as limited knowledge as him
self can follow and enjoy him. Except
in the negative benefit that one who
reads nonsense is better employed than
If he were doing worse, very little good
is realized by the readers who thumb
the less useful half of public library
to pieces, while the standard works are
left clean and unsullied by finer marks.
In youth, while the mind is fresh and
unoccupled, it is comparatively easy. to
r give good direction to the mental
powers. Boys and girls like facts, un-
8 less they are put before them in repul-
sive ways. They ask, is it true ?"
q When the leading points of history are
Q presented to them in an animated and
r pleasant style, they find more satisfac-
tion in such reading than a jaded novel
D reader can in the freshest romance.
The young are also usually fond OF
travels and adventures. With a foun-
: dation of actual knowledge laid in, in
youth, readers discriminate for them.
s selves, and intuitively between such
i works of imagination as are worth
: reading and such as are not. A shallow
n pretender to authorship is intuitively
y detected, and summarily tossed aside
: If young people are induced-,led, moi
forced-to begin their reading Alright
g the chances are largely in their favol
y that their critical knowledge will max,
v them pretty good judges afterward.-
d Ledger.