27 
at all. He quoted Mr. H. G. Wells, the novelist, who says 
that “ thought is the life of a community ; a community 
which thinks freely and fully throughout its population is 
capable of a thousand things impossible to an unthinking 
mass of people. For 3,000 years the book has been becoming 
more and more the evident salvation of man.” Mr. Wells 
considered the “ penny dreadful ” was good for boys and 
made them more imaginative and clearer than the boys 
without them, whose imagination “ aborts and bestialises.” 
They anticipate, he said, Haggard and Stevenson. 
Mr. J. H. Rothwell took the opposite view, and said 
that the trashy literature could not but have a depre- 
ciatory effect on educational progress, which surely meant 
the acquiring of a capacity to do good. He included 
in “ trashy ” the novel which was not a standard one, the 
novelette, the scrappy story-teller and the blood and thunder 
tale, which must have a debilitating effect on the mind. 
No effort was required to read them, not even a minimum of 
concentration, and they rendered the mind unfit for serious 
reading. We had to enjoy our lives, but we ought to do so 
to great profit. The huge mass of cheap literature choked 
what was good and made it hard to find. The “ penny dread- 
fuls ” had no literary style in them and could not be compared 
to the works of Henty, Ballantyne, Conan Doyle and Haggard. 
He thought too much time was spent on promiscuous and 
purposeless reading, which weakened the memory and must 
also have a bad effect on the national character. He suggested 
a remedy, that a Board of Control should be established, which 
should be formed of people whose literary excellence was 
acknowledged and who should peruse all modern publications, 
except newspapers, and should hall-mark the good, and issue 
it at a cheap rate. To enable them to subsidise what was 
worthy he thought they might tax that which was not worthy 
of the hall-mark of excellence and with the money obtained 
buy the copyright of what was good. They required 
protection in some such way as this from what was not worth 
reading, just as they were protected by the government in 
the trying of precious metals and in food stuffs. Authors 
ought not to be allowed to foist off any kind of rubbish on the 
public. 
A good discussion followed. Mr. G. S. Ritchie, while 
agreeing with what Mr. Rothwell said as to the enervating 
effect of trashy literature, criticised his scheme and said that 
to approach a subject such as the present with a remedial 
Act of Parliament up his sleeve was a strange act of worship 
to the fetich of practicality. He thought the scheme would 
