Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1909-03-17
THE JUDGE MILLS
ORATOR|GAL CONTEST
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deavors of the late arrivals to reach
over neighbours shoulder and secure
volume more poular than the rest !;
watch the fingers and the eyes,
running nimbly from book to book
and from shelf to shelf, in search of
some title. which promises amuse-
ment. Then compare it with the
one, or two or three, standing by the
shelves of history, travel, biography,
science and poetry, searching for
something which will be food to his
mind, stimulating him to fresh effort
and fresh endeavor. If you still
doubt it. ask the librarian why
there are no more volumes of history
on the shelves, why SO few bio
graphies, and she will tell you that
it is because there is so little call for
it, because the appropriations and the
shelf-room are exhausted before the
demand for fiction has been satisfied.
60 step farther and examine the
volumes themselves. Which are the
thumb-marked. the dog-eared, the
much suffering Individuals What
books are stacked on the library
tables, waiting for new covers, new
leaves or renewals5 Do you ever find
book of fiction with the leaves un-
cut. And yet how often is it, that
one takes from the shelves, a book of
science or Of travel and finds it is as
fresh and unsoiled as from the pup.
fishers hands2 Sad it is to reflect
how many thousands of readers,
acquainted with ''The Heavenly
Twins" are ignorant of the Waverly
Novels?' How many have an intimate
acquaintance with Lyrics of Lowly
Life who never read the lode to
Immortality How many are smiling
familiar with David Harum, who
know not Landors' name Robert
Burns might die in ignoble poverty
and Poe in direst want; Wordsworth
might live all his days in a humble
cottage and Carlyle seek in vain for a
publisher while the fortunate, but
no more worthy authors of David
Harum, Richard Carvel, The
Crisis, Janice Meredith. and hun
dreds of others, reveal, by the i'm
mense sale of their works, the taste
Of the modern public.
Our authors, our literary servants,
are tempted to the field of fiction (;
amateur writer's are carried along by
the flood growing boys and girls are
stimulated to a liking for the trash,
and infants are ground through a
machine which will cultivate their
imaginatlons. 1t is one of the great
mistakes in modern education, that
from the kindergarten, learning has
been made too easy for the child. The
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How wonder what you are,
has become
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
Teachers told me what you are.
There is little in home. school or
social life, which urges the child to
hard mental calculation and effort.
AS result, the child developes into
the man or woman, who stands before
the shelves of fiction, while
philosophic, but dusty, old Dante on
one shelf, winks knowingly at the
equally dusty cap and garments of
VIM. Shakespeare across the corner
The printing press may send forth
upon the patient public its thousands
of new books every year, but it is not
necessary that our homes. shall be
invaded We still possess the privilege
of denying hospitality to these
destroyers of our tender vines It is
almost without comprehension, that
we, the finished product of thousands
of years of struggle, with the busy,
teeming world, subservient to our
Wills. with the accumulated knowl-
edge of centuries at our hands,
should find it necessary, or even
desirable to waste so many precious
minutes upon reading which cannot
work anything but harm. We crowd
our minds with so much that must
be forgotten, absorb SO much, that
must ooze out, that our charged
and ll-treated mind weakens by it's
constant endeavor to separate the good
from the bad. Each generation
emphasizes this weakness, and even
now, we have generation. which
pleads, II must be amused. l wish
to rest. Take away Emerson, take
away Milton and Dante. Bring me
light, popular fiction. What does
it indicate when race of people find
it impossible to rest while reading
Emerson or to find amusement in
Shakespeare What could it indicate
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