Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1886-08-11
The Modern Reader

The Modern Reader
The party least understood in these
days is not the ancient or modern author,
bnt the modern reader, the man to
whom the ancient author looked for
posthunous fame, and on whom the
modern author fastens rs one claims
his own. Sir John Lubbock selects
his 100 writer's, old and new, whom
everybody ought to read, while Mr..
Ruskin and other eminent litterateurs
comment upon his choice and express
their personal preferences. But for q
company OF modern readers, whose
name is legion, these lists Of famous
books, without reading which no ones
education is said to be completed, are
quite beside the mark. If the literary
doctrinaires who tell us what to read in
order to be cultivated, are to be fol-
lowed, one must spend good proper
ton Of his time in reading books that
the world has left high and dry on the
shelves of libraries. Ii he is to read
the worlds great classics with apprecia-
ton, he must study them with refer
ence to what preceded them and what
followed them in history, to fully grasp
their meaning, and this is only possible
to persons of extensive education and
leisure. 1t is possible for you to go
through them in a hurried way, but You
will largely miss their Sweetness and
light" if You treat them as you treat a
novel Of the day. This is the only way
the people can read the worlds classics
at all. The opportunity is hardly better
for those in professional life. Its exac-
tons, its special literature exhaust your
time, and you find that you are only
able to read the papers and the books of
the hour. In other words, the actual
circumstances of life for those who are
earning their own living practically
render null aud void good part Of the
suggestions which Sir John Lubbock,
Mr.. Ruskin, and Frederic Harrison
give the general public. They write
for people who have nothing else to do,
and their suggestions avail little for the
practical necessities of modern educa-
ton. Yet it is important that the mod
ern reader shall be provided for, and
that he shall be a man of his time.
Modern culture consists of a knowledge
OF modern life, of the assimilation to
ones self of what is best in the spirit of
the age, of close following of the
trend of events of the slowly acquired
power to think and speak correctly. 1t
is the quick and apt training that fits
one for the work he has to do, and it is
claimed that this training gives the es-
sence of culture to the modern man
and woman. If you go back to the an
cient writer's whose fame has survived,
you find that it was the clarified and
large conception of present life, the re-
suit of the best use of their faculties,
that give them pre-eminence in the
world 1t is just this use of ones fac
ulties to-day, the full acquaintance with
the activities Of the world, that makes
the fully equipped modern man and
woman. 1t is only book-worms and
dry-as-dusts who devote themselves to
Homer and Aristotle and Lord Bacon,
and the habit of quoting them passes
as pedantry. The reading of these
writer's is reserved for the learned few,
and the insistence that one must read
them to possess truly cultivated mind
is sheer nonsense. Nobody believes it
possible but a dozen or two of our lit
erary doctrinaires, and they carry no
weight among the people. Mr..
Goschen, who is fine specimen Of the
clear-headed modern Englishman,
holds to no such views in what he has
spoken on this subject The modern
reader must be educated, for the most
part, through the newspaper, the mag
azine, the sermon, the lecture, the daily
discussion, the new novel, the contact
with social and political problems, and
the cheap editions of the worlds clas-
sizes, and in familiarity with these
sources of culture qualities himself to
become citizen of the world. 1t is
time that this sort of training, which is
the outcome of the public school, had
the praise which it deserves. It makes
the keen, alert, quick, clear-minded
man of affairs and no less it produces
the thinkers and writer's who are to deal
successfully with important issues in
society and State and church. 1t is
well enough to give your days and
nights to the ancients, if you have moth
ing else to do, but it is no more neces-
sary, in order to secure the best kind
of culture, than it is to clothe yourself
in the garments of your ancestors in
order to be well-dressed. The best
thought of the ancient world is inear-
mated in the life of to-day. Its spirit,
its movement, are in modern education
and in modern books, and the reader
who uses his opportunities to become
properly acquainted with modern things
has the essence of the finest culture of
the world constantly within his easy
reach. The wise use Of modern books
will give any reader of to-day the in
sight and the strength which consti-
tute the best modern education Bos-
tom Herald.