The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1904. PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE INFLUENCES OF LITERATURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 291, 13 December 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1904. PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE INFLUENCES OF LITERATURE.

Throughout the reading world the returns of public libraries and other book-lending institutions almost inr variatoly tend to prove that the popular taste for'reading matter gratifies itself chiefly by the perusal »f more or less trival works of fiction. But such returns, while seldom without instructive value, may at times prove very misleading. TalbXiiated figures are occasionally prepared in ■such a way as to justify the verdict of the cynic who summed up the degrees of falsehood as, "lies, d (1 lies, and statistics." Any return of books read .which merely compares numbers of volumes and keeps no count of individual readers is open to serious abjection. It is plain that under such a scheme Miss Romantic, who rushes through Bertha M. Clay's and Marie Corelli's novels at the rate of three or four a week", figures for as much as a dozen sedate readers who take their ten days or a fortnight over the study of one volume each of serious literature. For this reason the criticism condemnatory of public taste which is often based on such figures necessarily falls with them. The report of the committee of the Auckland Public Library (important as embracing the late Sir George Grey's magnificent collection) was presented to the City Council on the Bth inst., and contains some statistics of more than local interest. On account of a recent agitation in favour of dealing more equitably with all classes of subscribers, the committee made special enquiry into the experience of kindred institutions in other parts of the colony and in England. From some of the figures collated we gather that in Birmingham works of fiction circulate in the ratio of nine to one of all other classes of literature, while in Wellington the ratio is eleven to one,and in Auckland itself seven to one.

But these figures do not show the ratio between the actual numlx?rs of serious readers and readers of fiction. Any criticism of public taste based upon them, or upon figures prepared on the same delusive method, is unite invalidated by this consideration, For the same reason it camiot be admitted that the committee's conclusion that, "Public support to 6 Public Library can be secured only by keeping its shelves supplied with the latest novels is supported by established facts." It is, of course, possible, and evan probable that notwithstanding defective data," this opinion is not devoid of a largo clement of truth. That, of course is as it may bo, but it is very clear that no conclusion adverse to popular taste or intelligence is directly deducible from such figures. At the same time by granting something, and admitting information from other sources, we may be compelled to recognise that the vast bulk of the popular demand is only to be met by works of fiction. It may even be admitted that much of this fiction is of a trashy character. But it docs not follow that the result of this kijwl of reading is wholly bad. Only when weak and washy novels nnfl crudely composed stories of unreal life are permitted to displace literature of an instructive or stimulating character can it lie unreservedly said that harm is done. But the book selection committee of any public library is under no sort of constraint to cater to the taste of the badl.veducated by loading its shelves with the unmeritorious ephemeral works of authors, who in the days of Scott and Thackeray would have sought a publisher and public with the certainty of disappointment. In their purchases of current literature it is rather the duty of such a committee to help to cultivate a taste for what is free feom all meanness and meretriciousness. To a certain extent this duty is recognised, though in many cases it is not easy to know on what principles the line is drawn between the different degrees of badHess. It is, for example, precisely the same classes of intellect—the immature and the ill-educated which revel in the writings of Fergus I-lutue and the similar writings of nameless scribes who work for "Nick Carter's Library." Yet, while the formerly are commonly selected by committees, the latter are always and everywhere "banned and barred." While professing to consult and to ibe largely ruled by popular taste, committees do not consistently concern themselves with the wishes of the many who love crude yarns of crime and adventure, and who, like "Toddy " of "Helen's Babies," prefer their stories "Muggy." Any body of men who assign popular taste as a justification for the selection of trashy novels, should not exclude the crude and "Muggy." If however an Inde* Expurgatorius is .essential to the cairyinß on of a public library, the persons who are deputed to criticise and set the black mark against an.v class of books shotfld be men (if such culture and catholicity of judgment as to justify the delegation to them of those ample powers. The literary man's most common complaint against public library censors is that, while many notable works of fiction, history, biography aii<l poetry, are commonly interdicted,the turgid inanities of Mftrie Corclli and the rubbishy inventions of Guy Boothlby are always 'admitted with a warm welcome, While an imb*\vdlerised edition of Feilding or Swift is quite unprocurable, "The Sorrows of Satan" and "The Beautiful White Devil'' are everywhere at hand.

Th« fact of the matter seems to be that in most English and colonial libraries the list of books is compiled, as it has been said the English novel is written, chiefly with an eye to the tastes of the boardingschool miss. There is an aibsence of classification of readers, and little attempt is made to separate works for adults from those more especially suHablo for younger people. It would seem an easy enough matter

in a library of any extent to provide both a reference and a circulating department for adults only. It ought also to Ife possible, with tho literary reviews and the literary colums of papers like the Times, Saturday Review, and Spectator as guides, to select from new and unknown books only those of educative or literary merit. In no case should the quantity of ephemeral fiction lie permitted to be more than a small fraction of the whole mass of books. The function of a public library should be to guide the taste of the semi-educated to better things as well as to afford to those who need no guidance an opportunity of reading and consulting standard and recent works which in quantity are beyond the private meatus of any but the very rich. While thus seeking to define our idea of the functions of a public library wo would not wish to be understood as condemning in toto the reading of modern fiction. Nor would we advocate any limitations in the nature of the books which adults may desire to read. Altogether apart from public libraries there is going on at the present a steady trade in cheap and mostly shoddy literature. The whole tendency of British literature is in the directionof fleeting trash and brief snappy articles on subjects which cannot really be dealt with in less than volumes. This trend of public taste is due to two causes, the first and most potent of which is the vast increase of readers which has come with popular education), and the second, the diminution of distances which has come from the. enwrapping of the world in a net of telegraph wires. The vast bulk of the newer readers have not learned to think, and those who can think have to read too much to have time to think well. The love for trashy fiction is explained by the fact that it is primitive in plot and composition, and exacts no mental effort. This may be a regrettable state of affairs, and certainly would be so if there were any likelihood of its be-

coming permanent. To our mind it is only a passing phenomenon incidental to a great change in social and industrial systems, and to the lessening of space and time by modern invention. We have no sympathy with the lamentations of those who regret the crudity of much of the popular literary taste. Almost any sort of reading is b#tter than none, i The adults who read "Nick Carter," and "Buffalo Hill" tales, and "Titbits"and" Scraps" and other such papers, are those who otherwise would reaid nothing ; therefore, instead of being worse for this reading they must be distinctly better. As for the boy's love of tales of blood and adventure, it is generally a mere phase of mental development. A boy is a savage more or less modified by environment. As a savage. he is a hero worshipper. His hero is some man strong and brave, cruel to foes, but generous to his friends and to the weak. That he is also a murderer, a bushranger or a pirate counts nothing against him with the boy, but, so long as he is boldly and picturesquely bad, is wholly in his favour. Lacking the presence of such a hero in the 'tame monotony of civilised reality, the boy seeks him in "penny dreadfuls" and "shilling shockers," and so long as he seeks him with the penny or the shilling in his hand his elders in commerce will see that his wants shafl not go unprovided. Having attained the hard realities of manhood's years the late boy, now become more or less civilised, forgets these things, or remembers them only to laugh at his own youthful ambitions. Here and there, and perhaps not so uncommonly as we are apt complacently to assume, there lives a man who is still the same old boy in everything but in years and stature. His intellect is in the condition of what is scientifically known as retarded development and his taste for tales of blood and lawlessness remains as keen as ever. TYotaibly it happens that such men are decent if not always sedalje citiy.ens, but often it is rather due to pure chance, or perhaps to the grace of God, that such a one does not find himself an outcast or a criminal.

This failure in th« full development of the social instincts is not to be confounded with the breezy love of adventure and free life which often endures in the best of men till their latest years. The latter is also inherited from ancestors who lived the lives most of us can only imagine, and is in 110 way a thing beyond the control of will. But,neither failure in mental development, nor controlled love of adventure, is due to any special course of reading. Both arc equally the possession of persons who have pored over books and of those who 'have not, The boy with unreal and foolish views of life does not steal a revolver and run away to become a highwayman because he has read "Paul Clifford," nor dues a girl succumb 'to the first flashy tempter. because she has in secret loved the bold, bad nobleman of "London Journal" stories. Young folks do these things occasionally, because they have foolish parents, from whom they have inherited some share of foolishness. If any large proportion of youth succumbed to the allurements presented by the rubbishy books they read, the times would be so largely out of joint that at least one-half the world would be policing the other half. • » • *

Good reading, and taste educated to appreciate it, are highly fiesirable and not uncommon, but, to «ur thinking, the influence of book's on human action is often largely overestimated.

ON THE FOURTH PAGE. Borough Council.