Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1904-01-28
WHAT rnE PEOPLE ARB READING.

The Outlook lately published an i'm
teresting symposium In which libra
Ran OF large experience. q puhatsher q
the first rank and well known New
York bookseller gave their Impressions
of the extent to which books are read
ii America and the kind Of books that
are most popular
The librarian. John Cotton Dana Of
Newark. N. j., asserts that almost ev-
erybody today reads something, If only
the signs and posters. Ten to twenty
millions Of our population read news
papers, he thinks, and perhaps two OF
three millions read serious literature.
He calculates that adults read seventy
novels to thirty other books and says:
The demand for something to read
comes now from millions, formerly from
few thousands They demand reading
suited to their capacities and tastes, and
the supply comes forth. The billboard,
the penny paper and the five cent dreadful
these are their Third and Fourth Read
era their literary primers, their introduc-
tions TO better things In reading them
4
Il ing themselves and In almost the best
l possible way. They get what they wish;
| they read with interest and pleasure; they
/ take profit therefrom. MoreoveT-and this
In the other weighty fact In the case
/ they steadily improve In their choice
The chronicle of the growth Of clean and
wholesome journals, daily, weekly and
monthly. In the past two decades 10 rust
as wonderful In it's way as that OF the
growth of those yellow papers which fnaks
M cringe
The publisher Charles r. Brett, pres
ident of the Macmillan company, is Inn
Ipressed by the growing intelligence oi
the reading public and says:
i Compare the books in late years b.
such writers as Maurice Hewlett, Mrs
Wharton, James Lane Allen and cthe,
popular writer's whose works have q
great and enduring sale today with tht
books most popular In the early seven
ties, and ii will be quite clear. ] think
that the standard OF popular taste during
even 30 short period AZ twenty or THIRTY
: years he's been not merely improved, bu
greatly improved. IH publishing
experience of nearly thirty years | hav
! never known a really good book fall Il
make its mark and find its public.
81 The bookseller Ernest Dressed Norti
, says:
| In examining the statistics OF the yea
showing the number of books printed an
2 the classes they represent one gets a.
idea OF what the public really reads. Tn
following figures although representin
3 the publishing end of the business az
also fairly representative Of the bookseil
fng end. Fiction imported and home
made, heads the lfss Of 1902 by an outpr
& Of between seventeen and eighteen hun
arad. Aside from the technical publLea
y fi0ns which are merely tooIs for the wori
1 / man, the entire lists OF other works |
literature for the same year, upon an q
knowledged approximate estimate, nun
Is Der only between 1000 and $500. We mu
accept then, the fact that In these da.
we prefer our mental pabulum served
q the form Of fiction and acknowledge
:. the same time that the boundaries b
= tween fiction and philosophy or psychc
e- ogy or scientific statements have qui
III disappeared. and everything included
s the entire universe can, II now appear
sr be put into 9 story.
MI Tf the reading of books be taken
g the measure Of the peoples intelligen
Of there il no doubt that we are stead
advancing.