The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-09-25
PerniciOus Literature.

THE bookstands are laden with cheap
literature of kind seemingly produced
for the purpose of making boys grow up
into bad men, and the supply is increas-
ing monthly despite the protests which
appear in the press and occasionally
from the pulpit. What the pulpit has
done toward the suppression of trashy
literature would probably have been
greater had the invectives of clergymen
not been generally so sweeping as to be
ineffective, fiction of all kinds being
sometimes assailed; but that what the
press has said has been liberal enough,
and that it has been followed by no re-
suit is proof that demand exists which
must be supplied and that the remedy
for bad literature is good literature.
The average American boy will have
something to read, and constituencies
publishers have profted by this know
ledge to produce highly-season cheap
romances which attract the youth i'm
mensely and the effect of which can be
only corruption. In limitations of the
"Lakeside" and "Seaside" libraries,
which within the past year or so have
grown so popular, there is now issued
",
the different works in which are chiefly
impossible detective stories or incredible
tales of the far West. The boy reader
is not discriminating, and is seized with
a wild desire to pattern after the hero of
the latest of these works he has CHANGED
to read. Scores of boys, ranging in age
all the way from eight to fifteen years,
have stuffed their pockets with edibles
from the pantry, obtained an armament
of an old pistol and few rounds of
ammunition, and left st. Louis with the
intention of becoming "boy-avengers,
or something of the sort, and of totally
discriminating what few remain of the
Indians. These bold marauders, after
tramping three or four miles out in
the suburbs, or stealing nights ride
on the cars, generally return in
day or two, having learned something;
but the lesson is not permanent, and the
next time perhaps they pattern their ex-
ploits after those of "The Boy Detec-
tive," who accomplished wonders by
becoming intimate with thieves and
ruffians. Here the initiative experience
is more pleasant, and foolish boys be-
come blackguards from associations
which would never have been formed but
for the influence of trashy literature.
The cheap novels for boys may not
openly inculcate vice, but the effect is
nearly the same. The heroes are i'm
possible characters who do impossible
things, and to older people the whole
plot is merely ridiculous, but boys are
not critical, and the silly romance is
law and gospel to them. In these books
the hero is rarely described as studying
hard or working hard and attaining
success in legitimate way. The infer
ence the boy gets from the story is that
he need not labor for livelihood, and
that it is the easiest thing possible to get
along in the world by numerous smart
exploits. The evil such stuff causes can
only be guessed at, but it can scarcely be
overestimated, and any practical device
for the suppression of this class of ju-
venile literature would be a blessing to
the country. There is no law against
trash, though, and how the boys are to
be saved from their enemies among the
publishers is problem.-St. Louis
Chronicle.