Literature and the Laity [pp. 1-8]

6 LiTEAATUJ?E AND TIJE LA!TY. [Oct.,
United States joined in a circular letter to the clergy, the heads
of institutions, etc., in the course of which they told some startling truths: "The average sale of any new Catholic book published within the past ten years has not reached by one-half the
number of copies sold of similar books twenty years ago. Nor
can it be said that, while the circulation of each particular work
has fallen off, the increase in the number of works has raised the
total sales to a respectable aggregate. There is no such increase.
The loss is absolute, and it represents an absolute reduction in
the number of Catholic buyers.
Consider for a moment what this means. Literature is rapidly expanding in this country and acquiring an enormous infinence. It is occupying the place which in the Protest~nt community was once filled by the pulpit. It is the only acquisition
except money for which Americans entertain a great respect.
The strength of any class in the formation and direction of the
national character may be measured by its literary progress.
Yet while our countrymen hurry forward we go back. As we
increase in numbers, as we heap up wealth, as we build schools
and colleges, as we manufacture bachelors and masters of artswe cease to read. The number of retail booksellers is less than
it was twenty years ago. For the past ten years the Cathotic
book-business generally has been conducted at a loss. Attempts
to increase the circulation of works of the best class by printing
them in cheap editions have failed. Attempts to commend them
to people of taste and means by handsome editions have fared
not much better. If it were proper to give figures of the sale of
certain of the ablest, the most interesting, and the best known of
the Catholic books now in the market the disclosures would be
astonishing. It is true that now and then a book achieves popularity, but the rare cases of capricious success only make the surrounding failures more disheartening. Prayer-books and schoolbooks apart, all branches of literature - history, biography,
dogma, philosophy, fiction, the belles-lettres-wither under the
general blight. Catholic publishers have tried hard, but they
cannot hud anything that the Catholic public will read. Even
Cardinal Newman, whom the world recognizes as one of the
greatest masters of English style and dialectics, at once one of
the strongest and most delightful writers of the century, is read
n~uch more by Protestants than by the Catholic laity.
The general neglect of reading works evil in more than one
way. It paralyzes publishers and it kills authors. Twenty years
ago there was fair promise of the growth of a vigorous Catholic