Etc. [pp. 106-107]

106 ~tc. [`Ju~y
ETC.
There is occasion for even more reflection than has ents, but of the children. And these children's
yet been devoted to the subject, in the distaste of teachers, at the same time, find that the little
the "general reader" of to-day for everything that things turn away from the books that fascinated
demands consecutive attention. The increasing their own childhood, as if they had been asked to
dominance of fiction in our reading might be at- study a difficult lesson, protesting, "0, that's too
tributed to a growing interest in human nature and hard!" Tlie other thing is the present disposition
experience, instead of to a failing capacity to read of schools, and parents, and wnters for children, to
anything harder, were it not that within the fic- make everything very easy for young minds. Easy
tion read there is a parallel change, from the long words must be used in talking to them; easy renand serious to the light and easy. Schoolgirls derings supplied them of all sciences and arts; easy
used to be allowed to read Scott and Dickens as an methods of education devised, by which the teachexciting recreation; they are persuaded now to er shall do most of the work, and through his Iaread them for self.improvement, and regard it as a bor, and the ingenuity of the system, and abundant
laudable and severe mental exertion. it is curious supply of costly apparatus, knowledge may be
to notice how restive magazine readers become un- pleasantly and imperceptibly introduced into the
der a serial that passes novelette length, however child, like a pill concealed in jelly, while he is
entertaining. Cable's "Dr. Sevier," Mrs. Burnett's kept as far as possible under the impression that
"Through One Administration," James's "Portrait lie is being amused. That he should be allowed
of a Lady," and "Princess Casamassima," all had or encouraged to front difficulties, to make stalwart
begun to provoke impatient comments on their con- efibrt of brain to comprehend what is almost betinuance, long before the authors. with any sort of yond him, to rouse his powers to do that which is
artistic propriety, could bring them to a conclusion. toilsome and disagreeable, and experience the joy of
it is curious to reflect what would have been the vigorous exertion and achievement,-this is reluck of Dickens, or Thackeray, or Tolstoi, had they garded as most dangerous, and apt seriously to inpublished their serials in Am'~Acan journals to- jure the brain.
day; and somewhat appalling to reflect what loss
in mental power it may imply that people are on PERHAPs behind both these things lies a comable to hold the attention continuously (even for mon reason. The newspaper is what it is, largely
the sake of entertainment, and even when aided by because the habit of reading at all has extended to
the division into monthly installments) beyond ~~ a lower level of society; the schools and the
brief a limit. writers for children have become afraid to demand
mental independence, because education has been
THERE are two things especially connected with extended to a lower level, and the children of genthis loss in power of continuous attention, partly erations of mental inaction are leavening the
as effects, no doubt, but still more as causes. One schools, and reading tlie books. Teachers know
is the tyrannous newspaper habit. No one who that the clii Id of tlie illiterate foreign peasant is
has watched, in any special instance, tlie develop- often simply stunned by the bare achievement of
ment of this habit to excess, can doubt its tendency learning to read, and has to be inducted into it by
to produce mental indolence. The book is dropped, an incredible expenditure of patient dnllin~, and
and only brief stories and artiUcs stand a chance an almost inconceivable simplification of everyof being read; and in time even these repel the thing that is said to liim. The peasant child leavwandering attention, and the brief paragraph of ens only the public schools, but the new rich, quite
the newspaper, the rambling succession of anecdote as indisp~osed to mental effort, and perhaps not aland incident and news and gossip and passing ways much more capable of it, leaven the private
comment, become all that it can control itself to. ones. These dangerous accompaniments to the
The newspapers, with diabolicJ skill, minister great benefits of universal knowledge are to be
to this mental indolence, and thereby increase and reckoned with; and tlie only possible safeguard
perpetuate it. In tens of thousands of families, against them is in tlie protection and advancement
the newspaper is not only the reading of tlie par- of the higher learning.