Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-29
THINGS IN GENERAL.

IHlN6S In UENEhAL.
The Reading Habit and How It May Degen-
crate Into a yice--A Good Ground for
Divorce-A Bakers Dozen Volumes for
Summer Perusal
WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPAToH.l
The reading habit can hardly be classed
with the opium habit or with the swearing
habit, as deserving place among the grosser
vices of mankind. Indeed, there are some
who win even deny that the reading habit is
4 vice at all. They will maintain that it
j ought, on the contrary, to be encouraged and
| extended Such are the curious vagaries of
opinion which make life interestingl Read
ing is still taught, 1 believe, even to innocent
little children in primary schools.
4 There is difference, however, between
reading and the reading habit, as there is q
difference between drinking and the drink
| ing habit. Even the saints have been known
to alternate petitions with potations. 1t
| was among the Pilgrim Fathers, and at one
of their most solemn assemblies, that the
meeting began with gin and ended with to-
| bacco. Smoking is not essentially perni-
| cious. 1t is selfish and gluttonous smoking
which is an offense against morals. Read
ing is not necessarily q vicious practice.
Some most excellent people read, and read
| great deal, and are not ashamed. 1t is sell
4
the reprobation of all decent people.
A Victim of the Habit.
| And that is what mean by the reading
habit. The victim of this unfortunate habit
| Is never satisfied unless he Is reading some
| thing. Whenever and wherever he sits
| down, in q streetcar or in a steamcar, in the
| breakfast room or the parlor, out go his
hands after book or paper-read, read,
read. No matter what; advertisements will
do as well as anything else. And no remem-
brance afterward of what he has been read
| ing; no more impression made upon the
mind than the magic lantern picture makes
| upon the canvas sheet. This is not search
| after knowledge, nor the exercise Of q liter
| ary taste, nor the enjoyment of q literary
| pleasure. The victim of this monomania
| gets no more good out of the page than the
| printing press did. The reading habit is
| nothing but habit. 1t is vice. 1t is an
| other way of chewing gum.
The reading habit ought to be good count
in an indictment for divorce. Who will live
with a pan who cares more for pages and
paragraphs than he does for his wife and
children? He keeps selfish silence, culti-
Yates unsociabilfty; might as well be asleep,
or m ade out of wood, SO far as his contribu-
tion to the pleasure of the household goes.
By and by he gets so that he can't talk, even
when he wants to. Finally he doesn't want
to. He has become newspaper deaf mute
Rational Thinking and Conversation.
The best amusement in life is rational con-
versation, and that depends on rational
thinking. But reading habit discourages
conversation, and stops thinking. The vic
tim of this habit lets the printer do his talk
ing and his thinking. The more one reads
the less one thinks. For, surely, thinking is
not game of ffollow-my-leader. There is no
real thinking without independence. No
body Is thinking when he is only holding
book in his hand and letting somebody else
think for him. You can't think with your
eyes. We are all the time thinking and CIV
ing out, just as we breathe. But it is posi-
BILE to cultivate the act of taking in at the
expense of the act of giving out. Great
readers are very often mere prisons of
knowledge. There may be q good deal of
useful information slowed away in their
brains but nobody gets any good of it. Set
these bookworms to teach, and they make a
failure of it. They can't even talk.
Yes; and the reading nabit blinds people,
You can't see the world through the covers
of book. You can't see your wife across
the breakfast table through a newspaper.
Put that down and look about you if you
want to see anything.
Who shall say hard enough words about
the vice of reading? 1t is the enemy of social
life; it destroys domestic happiness; it
makes people deaf, and dumb, and blind; it
interferes with patriotism and religion.
Stop it; don't read Follow the wise counsel
of old Omar, burn the book.
A Little Judicious Temperance.
That is. burn some of the books. Don't
read too much. It is the reading habit that
I am trying to discourage, not the habit of
reading. Some people may need to take a
pledge of total abstinence in this matter, as
the only way of breaking up the reading habit !
But for most people, / hope, a little judicious
temperance will suffice. After ALL moralize |
as we may, we can't get along without some |
books; we can't live nationally without q |
sight of the daily paper. But in modera- |
tion; that is what I want to say. Not self |
ishly and not gluttonously; a little, and that |
of the best; and if read aloud, SO much the |
better. That will inspire thinking and en-
liven talking: That will change the vice |
into virtue, |
1 don't believe that a man can well con- |
fine his reading to his ledger, or that |
woman should be content with the literature |
of her engagement book, or Of her cook |
book. Here is the warm weather coming on |
and you are beginning to pack your box and |
your bag. Put some books in.
vicarious Reading Not a Sin.
1t is all right to read, if you read for some-
body else's benefit. With that purpose and |
intention you will never be in danger of be- |
coming O vicious reader. The Professor of |
Things in General, for the sole profit of the |
students who attend his Monday lectures, |
has just finished reading the last of dozen |
novels! Well, no; not all of them novels, |
some of them books of stories; but not any
of them to be put on the same shelf with
the Encyclopedia Britannica. Twelve books
of fiction.
Because if people are to read, even little,
and in the summer, they want to know
what to read. And they can't find
that out just by visiting a book
store, unless they are experts in the art
of choosing books. And not everybody is
that. The stores are crowded with books
bad, Indifferent and good. And we want
the good. But how shall we know the good?
Why, if we can get somebody to taste them |
for US first, and tell u.s. that would solve the
problem, wouldn't it? And so the Professor
of Things in General has spent week book
tasting. And here, as the result, are a dozen
books which he has personally investigated,
and to whose merits be can make affidavit.
They are not any Of them particularly pro- l.
found books. For who reads Buckles "His- T
tory of Civilization" in hammock? But
they are all of them worth reading.
A Glimpse of the Dozen.
"Gallegher and Other Stories" is by Richard
Harding Davis. Most of these stories have
been printed in the magazines. There is
plenty of local color in them-New York CITY
local color Mr. Davis is the editor of Hor. |