COUNTRY LITER ATXJBE. 229 



over brings something new. They understand the 

 hardships of existence, hard food, exposure, the struggle 

 with the storm, and can enter into the anxieties and 

 privations of the earlier voyagers searching out the 

 coast of America. They would rather read these than 

 the most exciting novels. If they could get geography, 

 without degrees of longitude, geography, or rather 

 ethnography, which deals with the ways of the in- 

 habitants, they would be delighted. All such facts 

 being previously unknown come with the novelty of 

 fiction. Sport, where it battles with the tigers of 

 India, the lions of Africa, or the buffalo in America — 

 with large game — is sure to be read with interest. 

 There does not appear to be much demand for history, 

 other than descriptions of great battles, not for history 

 •in the modern sense. A good account of a battle, of 

 the actual fighting without the political movements 

 that led to it, is eagerly read. Almost perhaps more 

 than all these the wonders of science draw country 

 readers. If a little book containing an intelligible 

 and non-technical description of the electric railway 

 were offered in the villages, it would be certain to sell. 

 But it must not be educational in tone, because 

 they dislike to feel that they are being taught, and 

 they are repelled by books which profess to show 

 the reader how to do this or that. Technical books 

 are unsuitable ; and as for the goody-goody, it is out 

 of the question. Most of the reading-rooms started in 

 villages by well-meaning persons have failed from the 

 introduction of goody-goody. 



These are the principal subjects which the villager 

 would select or avoid had he the opportunity to make 



