PREFACE. 



very paragraph, remarks, " The great fault of those who 

 choose books for the working classes is in their desire that 

 they shall read none but " good books ;" that is, as they the 

 choosers would express it, — " books which should contribute 

 to the religious and moral improvement of working men." 

 The greater part, therefore, are religious books, and the re- 

 mainder no doubt highly moral and instructive; but, un- 

 happily, just the sort that the majority of working men would 

 open only to shut again, after glancing over half a page. 

 It is entirely forgotten that a taste for reading is yet to be 

 created among working men. To give such religious book 

 or books inculcating morals simply, without their being at 

 the same time very entertaining — a quality often deemed 

 improper for labouring people — is only to make them feel a 

 disgust for reading." 



" Labouring men, and workmen generally who do read, 

 are affected by reading precisely the same as the classes above 

 them. They are entertained with the narration of what they 

 can understand and appreciate, and oppressed with dulness 

 or ' bored' with what they do not understand or appreciate. 

 Books, therefore, for their use must be highly entertaining, 

 if you would have them voluntarily read or purchase them. 

 But as with the greatest number a taste for reading has yet 

 to be created, books must be procured for them of a suffi- 

 ciently engrossing tendency to their minds to overcome the 

 distaste, or perhaps the difficulty, of reading them." 



It may seem strange to some that we should say so much 

 about " book-hawking" in these pages ; but we have re- 

 peatedly felt the difficulty which some of our poorer readers 

 have in getting possession of our works. They get to hear 

 of them in some round-about" way, and want to procure them, 

 but the bookseller in the nearest village or town, when ap- 



