The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1905-04-05
Gull TURE MAKES US
TOLERANT OF EVIL
Saws Man Who Laid Law Down
for Some New York
Women

man who lectured to women the
other day in New York said that Gull
ture often made woman too tolerant.
BY that he meant that she might enjoy
a thing when it was well done. even
if the morals of ii We're, questionable.
of course he was referring mainly to
reading. If a book was good as liter
allure. and a we'll balanced piece of
work but bad in tone. the woman who
could appreciate its merits would be
apt to overlook the demoralizing infiu-
ence of its ethics Now while many
women VIII hate this man for knowing
SO much, it cannot be denied that he
was right, and yet there never was a
woman, surely, who would care to go
back TO a time when she was too
young, or too uncultured, to appre-
ciate the beauties of good writing.
While the man is right, he did not go
into the subject and discuss the differ
ent kinds of bad books and what makes
them so.
There is a distinction to be made in
them. and the woman who is any judge
of literature, knows the difference be-
tween a bad book and a book which
merely tells of evil A really bad book
is suggestive one; a book which was
obviously written to pander to vicious
tastes. That kind Of book will never
be found in the hands of a cultured
woman save when she has taken 1t I'M
giving one a reflection of life, which
have much of evil in them, and had
they not. they would not be true to life.
For. life is q mixture of good and evil,
and the story which has no dark shad-
OWs III ii, may be agreeable, but ii is
hardly the strongest. Then there is a
class of bookS-and this class is prob
ably what the man referred to-which
are subtle, insidious and yelled They are
often written in the best of style, and
have literary qualities which appeal
to the women who can appreciate the
best. The man referred to said he had
heard cultured woman say that she
did not care what books her daughter
read, but if they We're written by wom-
en- she wanted to read them first her
self, Now, strange as it may appear,
and lamentable as it is, the worst of
the subtly bad books are written by
women. No explanation of this is
forthcoming. but the fact remains.
A boldly vicious book would not do
much harm to a healthy minded per-
son. but a story such as a few pub
lished within the last decade and which
it is not ecessary to name here, is cal
culated to do much harm. In almost
every case, these bad books have been
written by women. Stranger STILL in
one or two instances a life of vice is
pictured in so realistic a manner, with
such wealth of detail, that one wonders
how respectable women as the writers
are known to be, should have knowl-
edge of it.
The masculine speaker said also that
culture had a tendency to make women
feel that they can do anything they
please. This is true, and few of us but
know some woman of great cultivation
who is a law unto herself, and In a
way there is a freedom which comes
with knowledge. But it is the sort of
truth meant by the scriptural saying,
THE truth shall make you free"
Say what you will, however, no one
Is or should be above a certain defer
ence which is owed to public opinion.
We cannot live in communities and
absolutely ignore our neighbor. We
may know that our feet are planted on
a higher rung of the ladder than his,
and that We may do with perfect i'm
punity what he would not dare to do,
but it would be very unwiSe to take
advantage of that. Even if a saving
humility-WithOut which greatness and
culture are not of much account-does
not tell us that we must recognize the
brotherhood Of those whom in our Sc
cret hearts we may know to be less in
teligent, a certain policy and expedi-
ency should prevent us from suggesting
our own superiority.
Some persons by reason of wide ex-
perience, of having lived through great
sorrows or great joys, are far removed
from others who have not been so for
tunate; it would be quite impossible for
them to take these others at single
bound over ground that they have trod-
den painfully and slowly and make
them understand what comes only
through experience. So it is that Gull
ture does make one tolerant; because
no one with an understanding mind
can live long without learning to sus-
pend judgment. The man referred to
thinks that the appreciation of the best
"a sort of comprehension which is part
of what we call culture, is apt to make
us too tolerant of what is really not
moral. Perhaps he is right, but it seems
TO me there is more danger in igno-
rance. 1t is part of that same culture
to be able to discriminate between the
workmanship and the thing itself; and
II the tolerance which results from Gull
ture makes US more charitable, it is
likely TO do good rather than harm.