The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1877-06-12
READYNG rrcTTor.
What the st. Louis Republican Says of
Our Fiction-Reading Citizens.

The st. Louis Republican of Sunday,
the 10th, after copying from The ARGUS
the report of the librarian, of our public
library, as to the number and kind OF
books read during the month of May
says:
IF the purpose of reading is to instruct
and thereby benefit the mind, the above
cannot be called very gratifying exhibit.
| For every volume of travels or history
read by the patrons of the library, there
were fifteen novels. For every volume OF
essays and general literature, twenty.
three novels. For every volnme OF natural
history, one-hundred and ffty-hve novels.
For every volume of arts and science, two
hundred and thirty-two novels. Out OF a
Now we are certainly not unfriendly to
works Of fiction, and have frequently had
occasion to defend them against the as
saults of ignorance and prejudice, which
would deprive the world OF one OF its
purest and cheapest pleasures. But
while fiction-good fiction we mean-has
its uses, and valuable uses, it also has
its abuses, and these are dangerous A
novel combines great deal of amuse-
ment with small quantity of instruction,
and the true mission of novels is to be the
dessert after the dinner-not the dinner
itself. The man or woman who reads
novels and nothing else is as sure to de-
moralize and finally destroy the mental
stomach, as the man or woman who eats
cake and ice cream and nothing else is to
ruin the physical stomach. The process
: of destruction IN the former case may be
E little longer than in the latter, but it is
, quite as thorough and quite as irretriev-
r able. Novels, as employed in Rock Island
) and Rock Island is no exception to
the general rule are curse rather than
a blessing Instead of furnishing, as they
: ought to do. relaxation and recrea-
= ton to the intellectual faculties, and so
preparing these faculties for higher and
better work, they actually annihiliate the
taste aud capacity for such work, and
t leave the reader in far worse condition
than they found him,
IF every one of the 465 novels read by
] the Rock Islanders last month were of the
! best kind, our remarks would still be true
but the probabilities are that three foHrths
of them were unadulterated trssh-gotteT
s mp by authors who bear the same relation:
b TO Scott, Thackeray, Dickens and Bulwer
that a sign-painter does to Raphael o.
: Michael Angelo. The land is deluge(
with this sort of stuff, and its effects ar,
: ''only evil, and that continually" Their
. is demand for the pernicious nonsense
y and of course public Libraries have to sup
q ply it; though we sometimes think
would be better for tie public if the.
would close their doors rather than foste
a wretehed appetite which grows will
what it feeds on" As we have said, Roc
g Island is not an exceptional case, w
S presume our own Mercantile librar
IS can present statistics equally suggestive
and so could the libraries of all our larg
y cities. The fact is that novel-reading il
10 America is a national disease, and the dis
As ease has reached colossal proportions, |
le there any way of curing it2 Is there an
- way of checking it? Or is 1t to go on III
> cured and unchecked until the majority @
10 the American people become the victim
m of intellectual dTy-rot? This is an exceed
ID iDgiy important question, and our pre-
fessional amateur philanthropists ought
set about the answering Of it. The pulp
could do a great deal if it would, but III
- fortunately the pulpit. just now, is appal
~ emily divided between the two extreme
rs on this subject. One extreme denounct
i'd ali novels as devices of Satan for ii
IS trapping of souls. and the other holds u
certain celebrated novels as the product
y" an almost divine inspiration. and say
MS nothing about the Objectionable class. 4
at sermons in these latter days-partlcular
on those emanating from fashionable oracl
:. take for their themes nearly "everythir
go in heaven above, the earth beneath. al
'e' waters under the EARTH" we would re-
its pectfully suggest that few carefully pr
pared discouTsss on the uses and abuses
fiction might accomplish as much good
lectures upon unexplainable prophecies,
re- discussions upon unintelligible dogmas."
,ar No fair minded man. we believe, can
p found who does not indorse every word
bo the above article-and THE ARGUS b
nd called the attention of the public to IL
at subject, quite frequently, during the pa
~ three years IT is well. known fact th
nj many Of our young ladies have form
nd such habit of reading fction-and mu
IN. of it the most trashy kind published--tl
,se they are fairly carried away" and go in
MD ecstacies oyer this or that hero
oil heroine" 1t is also a fact that owing
the small number of religious books tax
from the library, the librarian has,
some time past, been chasing the religic
Ii books among those of a miscellaneo
me charaeter-probably ashamed to have t
use small number published 10 the papers.