Sunday-School Libraries. By Rev. Sanford H. Cobb [pp. 369-382]

Sunday-School Libraries.
fancy. It is a taste which is strong, which for years has had
its way, and which the press groans to satisfy but can never
satiate. Novels abound. on every side, from the artistic and
high-toned volumes of Scott and Dickens, down through a
multiform variety of grades to the wretched Dime Novels;
from the chaste pages of our excellent monthlies, through the
ample succession of weeklies, to the vile sheets which can
hardly be looked on without the contraction of a moral taint.
It is a crying shame that this department of literature should
be the only one with which the most of our young people are
acquainted, and that those who should guide them into sounder
habits siuffer them to pursue unchecked their own pleasure in
the matter. It will be found a hard task to make the ordinary youthful mind turn to a more instructive kind of reading. Even history, that study at once so useful and entertaining, is voted tedious by the generality. It will not be disputed that fiction, in its purer forms, has a beneficial mission to
the mind and heart. Its influence, properly guided, is certainly to be fostered, just as the careful housewife cultivates,
in a corner of her garden, gay flowers to beautify her rooms
withal. But to constitute works of fiction the chief mental
pabulum of our youth, is to do as she who should serve her
flowers on the table as food for her household. But just
this exclusive feeding upon the novel is what appears in the
present reading habits of our youth. What the result is, we
can see, in a startling and inexcusable ignorance of history
and science, in the prevalence of foppish mannerisms, in the
silly affectations of girlhood, in a lack of the elements of vigorous manly development and womanly culture, in a want of
sturdy mental force, and in amazing distortions of the moral
sense.
Now to the formation of this taste, which makes its demands
so imperious, and is followed by such consequences, our fashionable Sunday School literature has largely contributed. It
is a grave charge to bring against the prevailing management
of Sabbath Schools, but we are persuaded that it is more than
justified. The demand for sentimental fiction is made, and
our Sunday School men set themselves to the supply. Though
teaching in many cases holy truths, and professing the highest
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377
1871.]