u 



PUBLISHED EVERY MORP^ING, 



(EXCKPT SUNDAY), 



AT THE LEDGER BlilLDING, 



.»OPTHWK.T f^",R?ifift, V|f„,ff^f,T^, ^>^ff._CHKSWCT8Tg., 



WHAT PEOPLE READ. 



Among thirty thousand volumes In the 

 Mercantile Library at St. Louis, there are, 

 it is said, seventeen thousand which are 

 never called for by anybody. Tliis is pretty 

 well for the St. Louis Library, for It indi- 

 cates that more than one half of the books, 

 seventeen thousand to wit, are of some po- 

 sitive value. In other words, only thirteen 

 thousand are "popular" works. 'Tls true, 

 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true, that as the 

 average human being perversely desires for 

 his bodily food such substances as with least 

 nourishment provoke most excitement of 

 the palate; soiu his mental diet he Is prone 

 to desire "sensation" ratherthan improve- 

 ment or menial growtli and health. If 

 essays and homilies upon this subject would 

 produce reform, the reading world wsuld 

 have been reformed long ago. As in many 

 other attempted improvements and refor- 

 ■ mations, no small damage to the cause they 

 advocate has been done by injudicious 

 writers and lecturers, clerical and lay. All 

 fiction, all works of imagination, every- 

 thing but hard facts, have been objected to, 

 until the careless listener or reader comes 

 to suppose that useful reading includes 

 only that which is dry and dull. Con- 

 sequently young people delight in flctitious 

 reading, as If It were a luxury of sin; and 

 the zest of disobedience is added to the 

 other pleasures of Action. 



One cause of the absolute trashlness of 

 too many books is found in the fact tliat 

 their authors know nothing. There are 

 works of imagination, and the r;, 1er will 

 recall many of them, which stinV^.-ate in- 

 quiry into the history bot'.j of literraur?^ and 

 events; and which, while they confound an 

 ignorant reader with his ignorance, excite 

 one who knowssomething to desire to know 

 .more. When to the understanc^ing of what 

 you read general knowledge is necessary, 

 ,or when to follow a fictitious author you 

 must iuvestigate facts, no small good may 

 arise from his works as a part of education. 

 But a writer who knows nothing can state 

 nothing and can suggest nothing. His 

 themes and incidents are divided between 

 the common-place and the unnatural ; and 

 ' readers of as limited knowledge as himself 

 [can follow and enjoy him. Except in the 

 ■negative benefit that one who reads non- 

 sense is better employed than if he were do- 

 ing worse, very little good is realized by the 

 reader&|rho tliumb the less useful half of a 

 public library to piece ^^ while the standard 

 works are left clean and unsullied by finger 

 marks. 



