There is a danger to youth in reading some books which are not open to the charge of directly injurious tendencies.Many of the most popular juveniles,while running over with excellent "morals,"are unwholesome mental food for the young,for the reason that they are essentially untrue.That is,they give false views of life,making it consist,if it be worth living,of a series of adventures,hair-breadth escapes;encounters with tyrannical schoolmasters and unnatural parents;sea voyages in which the green hand commands a ship and defeats a mutiny out of sheer smartness;rides on runaway locomotives,strokes of good luck,and a persistent turning up of things just when they are wanted --all of which is calculated in the long run to lead away the young imagination and impart discontent with the common lot of an uneventful life.
Books of adventure seem to meet a real want in the minds of the young,and should not be entirely ruled out;but they cannot be included among the books the reading of which should be encouraged or greatly extended.In the public library it will be found perhaps necessary not to exclude this class of juvenile books entirely.Such an exclusion is not here advocated,but it is rather urged that they should not form the staple of juvenile reading furnished by the library.The better books should be duplicated so as to be on hand when called for;these should be provided in such numbers merely that they can occasionally be had as the "seasoning"to a course of good reading.
But the young patrons of the library ought not to be encouraged in confining their reading to juveniles,of no matter how good quality.It is the one great evil of this era of juvenile books,good and bad,that by supplying mental food in the form fit for mere children,they postpone the attainment of a taste for the strong meat of real literature;and the public library ought to be influential in exalting this real literature and keeping it before the people,stemming with it the current of trash which is so eagerly welcomed because it is new or because it is interesting.When children were driven to read the same books as their elders or not to read at all,there were doubtless thousands,probably the majority of all,who chose the latter alternative,and read but very little in their younger years.
This class is better off now than then by the greater inducements offered them to mental culture in the increased facilities provided for it.But there seems to be danger that the ease and smoothness of the royal road to knowledge now provided in the great array of easy books in all departments will not conduce to the formation of such mental growths as resulted from the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.There is doubtless more knowledge;but is there as much power and muscle of mind?
However this may be,none can fail to recognize the importance of setting young people in the way of reading the best books early in life.And as the public library is likely to be the one place where the masters of literature can be found,it is essential that here they should be put by every available means in communication with and under the influence of these masters.
It only remains now to say that,as we have before intimated the public library should be viewed as an adjunct of the public school system,and to suggest that in one or two ways the school may work together with the library in directing the reading of the young.There is the matter of themes for the writing of compositions;by selecting subjects on which information can be had at the library,the teacher can send the pupil to the library as a student,and readily put him in communication with,and excite his interest in,classes of books to which he has been a stranger and indifferent.Again,in the study of the history of English literature,a study which,to the credit of our teachers be it said,is being rapidly extended,the pupils may be induced to take new interest,and gain greatly in point of real culture by being referred for illustrative matter to the public library.
