The Vashon Island record. [volume] (Vashon, Wash.) 1916-1919, 1917-01-25
NsaNaNaaaEasMTNaNGMER OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

are various objects In reading and va
rious ways OF reading. and To give in
teiligcnt counsel To a reader one must
know why he reads and should know
| how he reads.
| The Germans are sDid to have PROV
erb that reading is an excuse for not
| thinking. That a boy is great reader
does not necessarily indicate that he is
a great thinker.
Sometimes reading in order to stop
thinking is profitable The tired mind
goes ON and ON at night in it's tread
nun when there iE no longer any wheat
to be threshed Then book which
VIII get the overworked and overbur-
dcned mind out of its treadmill is use
iul. Some one has called such books
stop thoughts Some of our CHEAP
magazines furnish very efficient stop
thoughts" When | look over the liter
ature exposed at an American news
stand, am inclined to think that the
market is overstocked. The supply may
not be greater than the demand but II
IS N excess of the real intellectual need.
Quite different from these sopOrifics
are the novels which furnish real recre-
alton. They d. not stop the thought;
they change its activity. They are n
dsyersion---ihat Is they divert the men
tai activity from Its accustomed chan
mel into one quite different The home
maker, wearied by the care of the
household. when the children are Ia bed
and the house is still. diverts her mind
Afbll the NtAflntNS OF the plSt and the
worries of the future by living for an
hour in a world of imagination
The distinction between a really good
novel and stop thought" may be
difficult to define, but il is real. | have
just been reading David Penstephen.'
and while absorbed In the sorrowful
problem of the remorseful mother and
the perplcSity of the puzzled son. nei-
thor Of them helped by the irresponsible
though affectionate father. | have for
gotten the problems of the war In
Europe and politics In the United states
II has not been stop thought" but n
diversion. Sometimes the best rest for
mind wearicd by problems which de-
mand decision and action is absorption
in problem which calls for neither de-
cision nor action. Sometimes the best
respite from activity in the real WORT.
Is temporary sojourn in world that
Is imaginary. But II Is always disos-
trous to emigrate from the real world
and spend ones HE In n world that Is
unreal and this is equally true whether
the unreal world is one of romance or
OF pietism. whether IL Is furnished by
a circulating library or by Il monastic
cell.
The recreation a public library
will be to the shut.in housewives
and mothers, and, ! hope. to our
neighbor woman far from her
native tongue and land, viii be
to re-ereate our minds, make
new CHANGE the little chan
nels worn by the MoNoTANY OF
life in our brain and keep them
from getting MEAN and sour.
Statistics show there are vast
ly more foreign women go in
sane than native born, so let us
have in our Library some books
in different tongues for the
stranger within our gates.
The recreation for most of us
in this community will be men
tai, for we have enough physical
exercise in our daily duties:
while our busy President gets
his recreation in physical exer-
else, to keep him in fighting trim
after his terrible mental strain.
A great many of us will enjoy
of strange lands as we
sit by our evening fires, while
those that tell us must struggle
and endure. Fortunately there
are some such pictures of Europe
for our minds eye, as that is the