Evening star., 1924-10-15

A most pleasant hornets nest has
been stirred up as the result of the
article recently appearing in this COL
umn about "Great Books That No
body Reads"
DR.. George F. Bowerman of the
Public Library called over the tele-
phone to tell me that Washingtonians
do read Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Prog
ress," Millions paradise Lost" and
even Josephus' History of the Jews"
He produced figures to prove it, too.
Even Spinoza's Ethics" was drawn
out OF the Public Library eight times
in 1923 and twelve times so far in
1924.
Readers from as far away as Har-
pers Ferry wrote to share their love
of good books with me, and to recall
the days when they read the very
books said nobody ever-well, hard
ly ever!-reads.
The point made in the previous ar
ticle was simply this:
such a list is interesting and in
formative, not because 1t may or may
not be accurate, but because 1t max es
one think about great things-great
books"
\ X
Truly, the love of good books is
one of the greatest possessions a man
may have. A book lover gets as much
pleasure in talking about books as
the base ball fan does in talking
about the world series.
1t is a real pleasure, then. to be
able to. share with the readers of
This and That" a few of the letters
received upon thiss ubject.
Writing from Harpers Ferry, F. H
p. says:
yIc 90 oh or,t oil fy
audibly. through a crevce in an other
BEHOLD in me
That novelty,
guy who's read Josephus.
'1t was n weighty volume. bound in
an odd sort of velvet-like fabric, faded
into a darkish pink. from what must
once have been a flaming red. Properly
so. 1t was cory book. Dime thrillers
were cambria tea after it.
Before that 1 had read Pilgrim's s
Progress in a volume whose wood cuts
allowed your imagination to rest-it
could add nothing to them. l remember
most clearly the sinister figure of
Apollyon.
But having been exposed to most of
the English classics through the chap
eronage of required readings for high
school and college preparatory exami-
nations, / am of Of them for life No
educational device has SO efficiently
anaeSthetised for SO many human beings
what might otherwise have been a love
for literature, and thereby released an
enormous amount of interest for and in
moving pictures, strip cartoons and
other peoples affairs.
Mainly am here to say few words
for S. Pepys. l claim the championship.
l have read his diary five times So far
l began with the Everyman edition, and
finished as the satisfied owner Of the
Wheatley edition. AS the picture of a
personality, with the warts included, as
the picture Of a society, including every
thing which academic histories omit as
trivialities and yet which alone recon-
struct for us the everyday life of a peo-
pie, 1t is unequaled. Stevenson fails
ignobly, II seems to me. to grasp the
significance Of the diary. And. aside
from the perhaps patronizing attitude
with which we may view this curious
personality, we may learn through
studying it from other sources than the
diary that perhaps without Pepys there
would have been no Trafalgar a century
and more after. No man has a better
right TO the title Of the father of the
British navy. This may be news, though
late.
Now. how many have read the
Diary?"
Many will agree with F. H. p, who,
by the way, lives in this city. in all
he has to say concerning the evils
of required reading in the schools.
Theoretically the system is good, ac-
tually it is harmful to its thousands
every year. Previously in this COL
umn the fallacy of cramming the