Arizona republican., 1908-02-15


  to whom the city is so much indebted An address that was not only able but an inspiration to the old as well as the young, was delivered by Rev Dr. Julius Atwood of Trinity Episcopal church. His subject was The Friend ship of Books" No book lover could fail to enjoy it and those who have been careless or negiectfui in their reading could not fail to appreciate their own less in the past and resolve ] to make the best oi opportunities yet to be offered.
 ! Mir. Yaeger followed with brief but ] highly complimentary and well de- served mention of the architect, con J tractor. mechanics and all who had ! contributed in the actual construction of the building. The ceremony closed with the singing of Home Sweet Home | by Mrs. Hulett the quartet and audi ence participating in the chorus.
 The following is a synopsis of the address of Rev. J. w. Atwood:
 | l am going to speak this evening of i the friendship oi books If we are
 
 women, it goes without saying that we will be readers of books. The trouble with many men and women who per haps are college graduates, but who are very uninteresting. is this, they do not read. l have known some people who have taken a high rank in their school and college life but who are only haIf educated because they have
 
 to cram simply for examinations. For knowledge for knowledge's sake. they have not cared. They have not the simplest conception of what that much abused word culture" means. I beg of you, if you do not care for reading now. to cultivate love for it. NOth- ing will make the universe so interest ing to you and you yourself so inter- esting to others as the fact that you are well read in the great books of this world. It does not mean that you are to be q walking encyclopaedia, ready to give out information at every mo- ment, whether it is asked for or not. The person who is widely read possess cs a rich inheritance t'at no material wealth can compare with. But in this 1 age of the multiplication Of books. it is to be sadly feared that a great many who call themselves educated men and l women do not really love books and, | therefore, do not read II is a sad fact | that in the absorption and rush of life, ] in the business, the social, the house. | hold demands made upon time and i strength, there is little opportunity left ] for the reading of good literature. ! There is plenty of reading of d certain 1 kind. Newspapers are devouTed, to | less extent the magazines, the illus ! trated ones, not the solid reviews. | Novels are also read out of all pro- ! portion to other books. l am not rail- | ing against such reading. It is valu- | able. A person would make a terrible | mistake who never read the newspa- pers or a work of fiction. He would l fail to understand the people and the | age in which he lives and the great 1 problems which confront the world.
 But let me urge upon the import ! ance oi keeping a right proportion. Do { not be satisfied with contemporary lit ! erature alone The arcients have l something to teach us. Take poetry, | the highest department of literature. . It was a belief of Lord Macauley cX- pressed in his essay on Milton that as civilization advances. poetry declines. l The fact that with the possible eXCcp- l 5ion of Rudyard Kipling, whose voice in these recent years has become dumb, not a single great poet is now living in the old world or the new world seems to give some truth to this assertion. Yet We cannot forget that the century so recently closed produc- ed such men as Goethe and Words worth, Byron and Shelley. Tennyson and Browning and the famous galaxy Of American poets, LongfelloW, Whit tier and Lowell. Read these men in order that your imagination may be cultivated. Read them for the noble truths that they will teach you for the spiritual and intellectual kingdoms in- to which they will introduce you. There are no friends who will more richly fill your lives with delight than the great poets who declare the mighty and eternal truths of the universe to our minds and hearts. And when you have made acquaintance with the modern poets, go back into literary history and know Shakespeare and Dante, the greatest and nOblcst of them all. Become familiar with the Greek Homer and with the Latin Virgil.
 In our modern life, I have some i times feared that our young people ], would no longer read poetry as their | fathers and mothers did and thus | would lose the rich culture which the | friendship of the poets alone can give.
 Then let me speak or two other de- partments of literature which will | make our lives both richer and deeper. Read history. The historians of the | past are well worth reading, but they | have not the preeminence of the an cient 5oets History especially is well Nritten in our own age. Research and | knowledge have made this possible. We read history not simply for the facts that are given but for the philos- ophy of life. I shall not caIl the roll of the great historians of modern time. Perhaps you will find it rather stiff reading to read Ranke, the greatest of them all. But the age of the ReformS- I~Tf L. !,