VALUE OF READING.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 311, 24 October 1929, Page 3

VALUE OF READING.

SOME INTERESTING VIEWS. Mr Stanley Baldwin, speaking at the opening of an extension library in London, expressed the opinion that one should be able to enter a library and expect to find the particular pasture in which one delights to browse. No doubt this should be true with respect to a public library. Primarily, literature may be divided into two classes, the literature of escape and the literature of pursuit. The two types should not be confused, for obligatory reading is very different from reading that is optional. We plunge into the literature of escape in order to gain an intellectual release from the stress of our business affairs. This it is that accounts in large part for the popularity of the detective story, since it promotes that complete self-forgetfulness that is the essence of enjoyment. University

professors even have frankly admitted that they prefer the thriller to the modern psychological novel with its pessimistic fatalism. As Mr Augustine Birrell has put it, the reader of the psychological work of fiction is apt to come down suddenly, as in skating, on his own personality, in which event he entertains no kindly feeling toward the unskilful author. Whereas confusion of the two types of literature renders a reader liable to lose an appreciation of one of life’s greatest joys, a wise intermingling of them is to be approved. A university student derives most benefit from his reading for pursuit by following a systematic and definite line of study. Yet something more is necessary, and his line of study must be broken here and there by reading of a less exacting nature. Similarly, for the general reader, the literature of escape should be leavened with something of a more serious nature. By this means we may not only acquire a literary background for our general reading but