The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-08-21
THE CORRECT THING IN READING.

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To remember that there are books
and books and books.
Good books, bad books, instruc-
tive books, false books, frivolous
books, corrupting books, senseless
books, amusing books, edifying books,
learned books, shallow books, coarse
books, insidious books, sensational
books, prosaic books, immoral books,
spiritual books; books devoted to
every ology, science, art, fad, or foible
under the sun.
That people read for pleasure,
profit, or relaxation.
That as no one can read all the
good books even if life were a dozen
times longer that it usually is, it
would seem that sensible people
would never be found not passing
the time," but wasting the time over
books that are worthless or distinctly
bad.
To have some system about ones
reading if one would derive lasting
profit from the books read.
To consider money spent for good
books as money we'll invested.
For the average woman to examine
her conscience we'll in regard to what
she has read during her past life and
to make firm purpose of amend
ment.
To remember that mind which is
fed on newspapers, fashion maya
zines, sensational and thrashy novels,
to the exclusion of everything else,
soon gets incapacitated for heavier
and more wholesome food.
For a woman to make an inviolable
rule never to read anything which
she would be ashamed to acknowledge
having read to the man whose good
opinion she values most highly; never
to lend a bad book, no matter how
corrupted already the taste of the per-
son soliciting it.
To burn any corrupting book
which may happen to come into ones
possession, either through ignorance
of it's nature when purchasing it, or in
any other way.
To remember that ones library is
an index to ones character.
To know that taste for good
reading can be cultivated.
To know that good novels may be
both interesting and instructive.
That the great Cardinal Newman
himself did not disdain good novel
To remember that novels are like
mushrooms: they should be partaken
of sparingly and great care used in
their selection.
For each mind to select the food
best suited to it, provided always
that it is the best of it's kind.
q To remember that few books well
studied are more beneficial than a
great many cursorily read.
To keep note book in which is
entered every book and important ar
ticle read during the year, with a
short summary of their contents.
To know that Cardinal Newman,
Gladstone, and many other great
scholars practised this rule.
For cultivated Catholics to know
the Catholic position in all the agitat
ing questions of the day.
For parents to admit no books in
their house which might have de
moralizing effect on their children.
To be as incensed at a person who
recommends a bad book as at one
who would mislead you into a mud
hole.
10 remember that as mud can moi
fall on white gown without leaving
a stain, SO neither can the mud Of
bad books fall on the soul without
leaving a mark.
For American girls of a certain
kind to remember that some of the
noted French novelists whose works
they so eagerly devour would no more
permit their own daughters to read
one of their books than they would
allow them to enter plague stricken
hospital.
To remember that there is a good
deal of fallacy in the much quoted
saying that, "To the pure all things
are pure" for practical demonstra-
tion has proven that mud is mud,
disease is disease, no matter what
angelic purity may characterize
their victims. Of course, some
natures have an abnormal capacity
for getting soiled, just as some have
constitutions for getting i'll; but that
fact does not lessen the muddiness
of the mud, nor it's tendency to leave
spot on whatever it touches.-The
Correct Thing for Catholics.