The morning call., 1893-04-20
READING FOR THE MASSES.

READING FOR THE MASSES.
Mr.. George r. Humphrey OF England.
who has had much to do for twenty years
with the management of libraries for the
working-class, has published q report on
reading for factory hands which contains
useful suggestions. He says that the ut
most that can be done is TO supply workers
with such works Of fiction or history or
biography or popular science as are within
their prehension, and that ii is idle to
offer them books which, however sound, do
not rouse their interest or pique their Curl
osity. Similar views have been expressed
by Dean Stanley, the Dean of Winchester
and others in this country like Colonel Hig-
ginson. who have made reading for the
masses a subject of thought
In purveyiDg for the literary wants of the
working-class it must always be borne in
mind that attempts to coerce people to read
the books they don't want to read must end
in disappointment. That Is the reason of
the failure of the tract society to accom-
plish results commensurate with its eXpend-
iture. Statistics have taught US that about
twice as many people want TO iced the I'M
agination as want to,nourish the other attri-
butes; in other words. popular libraries
will circulate twice as many novels as works
OF history, biography, science, travels, reli-
gion and bellcs-lettres put together. If,
therefore, we want to get the non-reader to
read we must supply him with books which
appeal to his Imagination. But while the
great standard n0Yels-like the works Of
| Ba'zac ThackeraY and Dickens-are effect
| i've educators, 1t is impossible osay as much
for the great buik of the fiction of the day.
! The trumpery novels which are appearing
at the rate Of a dozen per day from Ameri-
| can presses not only do not educate-theY
absolutely inculcate unsound views Of life
and tend to unfit the reader for the struggl e
with the world. The men and women whom
they paint are unreal; the situations in
which they are placed are impossible; the
| problems which they solve are absurd, and
the manner in which they are solved is ridic-
ulous. Their whole tendency is misleading
the habitual reader of such books, and of
them only, forms false notion of life, It's
| duties its responsibilities, its penalties and
! its rewards.
But when we say TO the appreutic or the
seamstress, why do you read 1.-The Bloody
! Bootiack," or The Crimes of the Hideous
! hidalgo"2 why do you not take Abbott
young Christian" or theF'History OF the
! Form a'on of the American Repubic'f
we are told that they fall asleep over the
! latter excellent works, and if they have 10
| choose between them and not reading a all
they will 60 to the baseball game or the ball
| of The WebfOot Society.
It must be admitted that the great maya
| zines of the day are laboring to combine
amusement with instruction, and to c!olhe
| facts and truths in a garb which feeds the
| fancy while it eQuips the mind. The series
tf,fh oil Al. HI,
| the Century are draped with color which
| gives them the glow of fiction; and the
! accounts of travel which are seeing The
! light in Hdrpcr's Monthly read like brilliant
| romanees, while they are in strict adherence
to truth. Such works cannot but please all
| classes; the unlettered reader finds himself
getting educated uuawares. as the boy takes
his dose of quinne in a spoonful of jam
The plan is susceptible of much further de.
velopment; and the development would
! diffuse teIlgence ana stimulate the taste
! for reading.
Take the four leading branches o serious
letters - history. biography. science and
travei-how many works in each branch
does the average young man or young woman
crave TO read, or. having read, love TO re.
| mem Der? Take the school histories Of the
| United States. They are intended for q
class in which reading is an acquired taste
| and whose appetite for facts must be
tempted Yet with few exceptions these
histories are so dull, so dreary, sc
confusing, so utterly devoid Of human
| interest, that the bright boy who
was asked why Providence had created
| the United States, not unnaturally
| replied that it was for the evaporation oil
! school children. So with biography. A
series OF Biographies OF American states
men is appearing, mainly, we judge. from
the pen OF Mr.. Gradgrind. A young person
! who honestly likes to read them must be
akin to the emu, Of whom the poet declared
that coTkscrews and gimlets but its appe-
lite whets. Writers like Pierre Lott aud
General Wilson OF Delaware showed US how
| fascin atlng a book Of travel might be made
our library shelves groan under books Of
travel in China and Japan, which no young
man can read without surrenderlng his con-
| stltulional right TO the pursuit of happiness
| And science! Young people devour the
novels of Jules Verne and the books OF
| Frank auckland; from both they learn
much which they never forget, but when a
young mechanic or working girl asks for a
book on a branch of science textbooks are
offered which are so dry and revolving tC
the youthful stomach that general desire
arises to burn them all on Bourdon's funeral
pyre.
In every class Of life people vii! read tn at
which interests them. and until law makes
reading compulsory, they will read nothin g
more. They will not read that which is
dull and heavy and coorless, however in.
structive it may be. They want romance,
and color, portrait, landscape. anecdote
pathos. sentiment. humor; if they cannot
get these in books which instruct they will
content themselves with ''The Groans of the
Cory Ghoul," or "The Sentimental Sorrows
/ nf L.