The Bemidji pioneer., 1898-02-10
MODERN READING.
We Are Inundated with Every Form Of
EVIL aud Vice.

We Are Inundated with Every Form OF
EVIL aud Vice.
Better not read" said Niebuhr
books in which you make the &C
quaintance of the devil" The advice
was given at an age when men did
read books. and when these, indeed
formed the bulk Of their reading, says
the New York Tribune. In these days
proportionately fewer books appear to
be read. To those that are, the same
advice applies as pertinently as ever.
For the number of books which serve
as letters of introduction, if not to the
devil at least to his most character
istic works, is large and, one may fear,
growing. There has been. of late a
flood Of problem novels" in which the
problem" is that of the relations be-
tween the sexes, and the solution
sought is almost invariably to make
those relations not pure, natural and
ennobling, but unclean, abnormal and
debasing, and to find specious excuses
of apologies therefor. The greatest
and most puzzling problem in the
whole business is, however, how intel
igent people of clean minds and lives
can find pleasure or profit in poring
over such revolving stuff. The genius
OF Rossetti may invest Jenny" with
an unmerited but nevertheless fasci-
mating interest. But the bedraggled
denizen of the Tenderloin, treated Dy
some schoolgirl sister Of Gifted Hop
kins, can never be anything more than
cheap and nasty. Nor does the latter
day predominance of newspapers over
books in the least lessen the force and
value of the philosophers injunction.
The vital truth in it is universal, ap-
plying to the costliest tome in the bib
liophile's library and to the penny
paper with which the errand boy or
the scullery maid regales a leisure
hour. Better not read anything in
which you make the acquaintance Of
evil. Yet in much of the current read
ing of the day how evil is Haunted and
forced upon the public acquaintance!
Here is wretched woman, illiterate,
drunken, debauched. Her whole life
has been given up to physical and
moral filth. There is not an honest
shopgirl in town who, meeting her
upon the street. would not instructive
~ step aside lest her skirts should
brush against the creature and be de-
filed. The career of vice is, however,
crowned with a capital crime, or with
some participation in one. Instantly
the fact is made the excuse for intro
ducing the woman personally to the
entire public. Through the medium of
the press she is brought into the
household, into the family circle. Her
hldeous features are thrust before every
eye. Her ignorant and vicious words
are repeated to every ear. She is made
the subject of psychological studies
and every infection of her voice as she
tells her tale of infamy is descanted
upon and interpreted" as though it
were the utterance of an oracle. The
example is only one Of an innumerable
multitude with which the reading mat
ter of the day is crowded. Those who
read make the acquaintance not only
of the devil but of all the inhabitants
of Pandemonium. If, then, people are
to be known by their acquaintance,
what is to be said of the present or Of
the oncoming generation Of readers?
It is a forbidding prospect. The daily
saturation of minds and Of immature
minds with all manner of filth newt
ably conduces to unsoundness. To
argue otherwise is to contradict COM
nonsense. When men sleep in mi
asmatic swamps to avoid fever and
ague and soak themselves in rum to
escape drunkenness they may fortify
themselves against vice and crime by
gloating over them and making heroes
Of their perpetrators. But when that
time comes we shall have to rewrite
every chapter of moral philosophy. At
present it is safest to shun evil, to look
upward il we would rise, to look for
ward II we would make progress, and,
IL we would have earth move toward
her earthly best, to obey the advice
given by ancient wisdom Whatso-
ever things are pure, whatsoever things
are lovely, whatsoever things are of |
good report, think on these things"