The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-09-05
WALTER SCOTT.
ISan Franciseaa.l


 The one hundred and fourteenth ami. versary of the birth of Walher Scott vas commemorated on Thursday. The name of the great [" Wizard of the North" as the author of the WaveEiy collection was called, Is suggestive of good writing, and ot what is equally or peEhaps more im- portant to the general pubic, good read ing. If men read more of Scorf to day,s says . famous New England author, !" and less of Zola and his ilk, there would be less crime to report and less poverty to depict for men are educated to virtue and industry or to vice and wretchedness as mnch by the books they read as by the authors they study"
 Thinking of Walter Scott leads us to ask whether it is not fact that we, as a people, read too mach of fiction and too little of biography and history1 Has not this ephemexal reading made us in more than one instance superficial pes- pie, and would not the stronger and more wholesome reading of biography and history build up surer and more sub xsantial foundation for American insel- lect2
 AS rule Americans arc readers, but not in the same measure or proportion tkiaker& h this country almost every body reads, and, if possible or astainable, reads almost everything that is published The appstite is omniverous, and, as pro ductive of unhealthy digestion, conse- quently dangerous. Good reading, be cause 1t carries us beyond ourselves, is healthy bad reading, or the perusal of books or newspapers which fails to lift men above their own level, or drags them down to lower depths, is the worst intellect-poison young or old may con- sumc. Books or newspapers written merely to amuse idleness, full of diffusive ignorance, containing the maximum of sensation with the minimum of thought, produce no good results, but, on the con- trary, many evil effects.
 IL has been computed that, on an aver age, 500 works of fiction are published annually. Suppose that each of these contains g characters. Here is a popu- lation of I2 ,5os fictitious people let loose among our population every year. Of these not moro than 800 are respectable, thus leaving I2 900 dlsreputable charac- .ers to prey upon the community from December to January. What untold havoc this dangerous clement produces is best determined by the number of boys and girls who from year to year i'll our prisons and reform schools, or who, fre- quenting the dives and hells of our cities, begin that downward career which leads to the gallows or state prison.
 lntemperance is called an evil so is the opium desire. It is questionable, however, whether the American appetite for universal reading and trashy literature is not a greater evil than either one or the other. Either of the two may be over come either may Dc partially or wholly cured. The latter. because the poison sinks deeper. because quicker in its power of absorption. and more rapid in it's far reaching and general diffusion, seems more difficult to reach and less suscept- ible of treatment. How far the authors and publishers of immoral books and newspapers are responsible for the evil effects of bad reading in the community we are not prepared to say. We simply deal with the fact that such reading is done, and that it is penicious. The ter Scott and his memory, suggests good reading, and as remedy to the whole sale waste of time and the wretched novels of the day we urge the change from bad to good, from unwhole<ome to healthy reading Our language abounds in good authors. Against the vile literature which, when failing to sell in France, finds market in this country, we urge an antidote in the splendid creations of Irving, of Hawthorne, of Cooper, Thack- cray, George Eliot. Maris Edgeworth, of Dickens. Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, George Macdonald, William Black, Charles Lever, and hosts of others.