THE ART OF READING.

Statistics as to the number of men and women of good standing in the world who cannot read might have a certain interest. There are probably more persons laboring under that disability than is usually supposed, and this with no reference to unfortunates who in early life have missed the opportunity of learning their A B C, but thinking only of those who have never found the way to utilize a knowledge of letters,—of persons, in short, who do not know what to do with a book. Trustworthy statistics, however, would not be easily obtained: there is too strong a prejudice in favor of books for any one to be very forward in confessing a distaste for them. Now and then such an admission is made, but, for the most part, people like to think that under auspicious conditions—if they had time, or quiet, or health, or what not—they should be great readers. It is a point on which it is quite possible to deceive one's self and almost impossible to deceive others.

You are acquainted, perhaps, with some lady on whose table lies the book that every one is talking about: it is not a novel, we will suppose. "Ah, you have that!" you say to her. Yes, and she expects to enjoy it immensely. She lifts the cover and casts a caressing glance upon its pages, for all the world as if she could not wait to be at it. You know the feeling, and sympathize with her. The next time you are there, seeing the book again reminds you to ask how she liked it. "Why, positively," she says, "I haven't had a single minute in which I could take it up!" But she still cherishes the same agreeable anticipations as before with regard to it. After a considerable lapse of time, on the occasion of another call you may notice a mark protruding in the region of the first chapter, and if mischief or malice or any other inborn propensity to evil prompts you to allude to the subject once more and inquire if the book pleases her, on the whole, she will probably say that it does as far as she has read, only there is an unconscious plaintiveness about this statement which betrays that enthusiasm has waned: the fact is, everybody is talking of another book now, and she has the uncomfortable feeling of being behind-hand. But all the same she may be just as intimately persuaded that it is only a concatenation of adverse circumstances which has prevented her finishing the book long ago, as you are that she will never finish it.

However, as already said, there may sometimes be found among non-readers a clear apprehension of the state of their case. Thus, a lady once avowed, when a conversation had turned upon the profit and pleasure of reading, that she had not the least liking for books and never had had. She regretted it extremely; she felt when she saw any one absorbed in reading that she had missed something; there were times when if she could forget herself in a book she should be very glad, but she could not; she had never been taught to care for reading when she was a child, and it was too late to learn now. Still, on being persuaded to think that she might at least try, she expressed an ambition to enjoy Thackeray, and asked to have his best novel recommended. "Vanity Fair" was accordingly suggested as most likely to please her, and, it being procured, she announced on the following evening that she had read thirty pages that day, and meant to continue at the same rate. Her admiration, alas! was plainly more for her own achievement than for that of her author; nevertheless, the literary adviser talked encouragingly, as the medical adviser often must, in spite of bad signs, and for a few nights the number of pages kept pretty well up to the mark, then steadily declined, and, after an hiatus or two, "Vanity Fair" was mentioned no more. It was, as the lady herself had thought, too late. But on another point also she may have been right,—namely, in the implied belief that childhood was the time when she might have learned to like reading.

There is certainly a wide-spread impression that children ought to display some taste for literature, so that to say a child does not care for his book is rather a damaging statement: it is made with reluctance: one is "afraid Charlie does not like to read;" one always adds, if possible, that "he likes to be read to, however," and in any case the obliging by-stander hastens to say, "Oh, well, perhaps he will take to reading as he grows older," which remark, on the principle that one never knows what may happen, is incontrovertible as far as it goes. No one would wish to assert dogmatically that Charlie will not ripen into a reader, but at the same time no one very seriously supposes that he will. "As the twig is bent the tree's inclined" is felt to be peculiarly applicable in his case.

And still one ought not to be fatalistic about the twig: for the tree, indeed, it is too late, but that means nothing, if not that for the twig it is yet time. In certain ways this idea is recognized and acted upon, as, for instance, when a taste for music is to be cultivated children are held to practise daily on the piano, even though they hate it; if dancing is necessary to secure a graceful carriage, they must learn to dance, notwithstanding that they might prefer to swarm up and down the sidewalk on roller-skates. And so, when a relish for books is to be awakened, why should it not follow that children must read? Why content one's self with anything short of that? To read to a child, otherwise than occasionally and with the occult purpose of giving a lesson in ease of utterance, is evidently pernicious. It may sound well to say that Charlie likes to be read to, but the real sense of the statement is that he considers reading laborious, and that we are doing our best to strengthen him in that opinion. To be sure he is right,—reading is more or less laborious at the outset; but then the obvious deduction from this would seem to be that the more seriously he applies himself to it the better.

To some persons such an axiom will have a brain-feverish sound: children are heard of who are devoted to books to the injury of their health, and so it is assumed that to incite any child to read may be a tempting of Providence. This is a groundless supposition. Even in the few authentic cases of precocious development efficient parents may easily take measures to check the ravages of intellect, while in the far greater number of instances where the mental and physical qualities are pretty evenly balanced, parental efficiency would be well displayed in cherishing rather than in repressing a love for literature. If one thinks what a companion a book may be in hours of loneliness, what a comforter in weary illness or in sorrow, and, above all, what a blessing in the temporary escape it offers from the every-day trials of existence, which tend to take on huge proportions if one settles down among them, but will look of a very reasonable size to one who comes back to them with sight refreshed after a judicious absence,—if one thinks of all this, the art of playing on the piano or of dancing sinks greatly in importance as compared with the art of reading. Even considering only the respective duration of advantage, one would have to decide for reading if a choice must be made, for girls generally give up music when they marry, and at some not quite so definitely fixed period dancing is renounced by both sexes, while books remain appropriate to every age and condition of life.

Happily, however, there is no need to choose: reading may be cultivated side by side with more florid accomplishments. To provide an interesting book and appoint an hour for its perusal may just as easily be done as to set apart an hour for the piano,—indeed, in some cases more easily, since there would be no bills coming in for the reading-lessons. And who will say that a child might not learn to like reading, might not insensibly get into the spirit of the art, by this simple method when duly insisted on? Perhaps it would fail sometimes; there may be persons absolutely incapable of the prolonged attention required for reading; but one cannot help thinking that in most minds this power of attention could be aroused and fostered, and that, therefore, if a child does not like books at the start, that need not be accounted a fatal sign. People who have detested their music-lessons at first have been known to come finally to the enjoyment of music through those very means.

When children should begin to read, and how they should learn, are questions which lie rather outside the scope of this paper and concern those who "take to reading" as well as those who "like to be read to;" but, stating the case broadly, one might say that they can begin at any time and learn anyhow. It has been seriously advocated that children be not taught to read until they are ten years old; and certainly it would be quite possible to prevent their reading before then. On the other hand, as an actual fact, they do read at seven and eight years of age, and used to read at five or even earlier. Regarded by the light of modern theory, what they used to do was, of course, deplorable; still, the fact remains, and is mitigated by circumstances, for the children were not considered prodigies at that time, and a due proportion of them lived to grow up, and may be seen to-day, as men and women, walking about the world in tolerable health and spirits.

With respect to methods of learning to read, the difference must appear even greater to one who has ever seen or who dimly remembers an old-fashioned primer. There was the alphabet to begin with, then some syllables and little words neatly arranged in columns, and directly upon that the reading-lesson, introduced, it may be, by the picture of a child in long pantalettes contemplating a shrub which, figuratively speaking, lent color to a few conventional remarks upon the rose,—as that it is red and smells sweet. Such was the whole system. We are aware now that to storm the citadel of letters in that fashion was absurd; that, on the contrary, it should be scientifically approached in the taking of outworks; and nevertheless here also is the fact to be reckoned with that children did learn by the old system, and that they learned with what looks in these days like marvellous celerity is a mitigating circumstance which has even yet a certain charm for some minds. There was a precision, too, about acquirements under the ancient method which is not always found under the new. At present the very mother of a child of eight years may not be quite clear as to her daughter's attainments; she can read, but still, "you know, they teach them now to write first," and it appears eventually that Nellie writes so well and reads so ill as to be obliged to copy off her lessons for the advantage of learning them from her own handwriting.

But all this is simply in support of the proposition that children can learn to read anyhow, and, assuming thus much to be demonstrated, we may pass to something else. What is a weightier consideration in the matter of reading than either how or when. As a question, it would be differently answered in different ages of the world. We know that Dr. Johnson once took a little girl on his knee and put her directly down again because she had not read "Pilgrim's Progress." The great lexicographer might take up and put down a good many children nowadays before he found the right one; and we need not think the worse of them on that account. We feel that even a child who had the advantage of Dr. Johnson's acquaintance ought not to be required to comprehend the Immortal Allegory. It is true he may have expected her to enjoy it without comprehending it, and that gives the case a different aspect. Considering how few books the little maid had of her own, and especially if it was an illustrated edition of Bunyan's works which, lying on the table, prompted the good doctor's question, one is half inclined to agree with him that the demons in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and the angelic forms which meet the Pilgrim as Two Men of the Land of Beulah ought to have enticed her imagination into reading, whether she understood or not.

Certain it is, at all events, that comprehension is not necessary to the appreciation of masterpieces. In an age less remote than Dr. Johnson's, although still antediluvian with respect to the now prevailing flood of juvenile literature, children often read and liked what they did not understand. There were fairy-tales, to be sure, even then, and tales popular and moral, also a few such books as "Amy Herbert" and "Laneton Parsonage," but children who were fond of reading soon had those by heart, and would then browse, perchance, in their elders' pastures, by which means it happened that one child used to derive no little satisfaction from the "True Account of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal to Mrs. Barlow." Told as it is with Defoe's inimitable circumstantiality, she was so far from understanding it as to rather more than half believe it. She knew well that ghosts at night-time, robed in white, were fabulous and never to be thought of, especially when one was alone in the dark; but a ghost that paid visits in broad daylight, dressed in bonnet and shawl like anybody else, and whose proceedings were gravely chronicled for grown persons and labelled true,—what were you to think of that? It may be remembered that when Mrs. Barlow asks Mrs. Veal any question the answering of which would seem to be inconsistent with her ghostly state, Defoe says, "However, she waived that;" and, waive not being at that time in the vocabulary of the young reader, she always imagined Mrs. Veal putting the question away from her, as it were, with a motion of her hand, and gazing the while in stony silence at Mrs. Barlow. This dramatic situation was calculated to have a certain effect upon the nerves, and in fact it was then that the profound silence of the room, accentuated by the ticking of the clock, used to seem fraught with the possibility of a ghost abroad with her visiting-list, who might presently be waiving such courtesies as even an unwilling hostess would feel constrained to offer.

Rather unhealthy reading, one would say, but yet not so bad as it sounds; for the book was no sooner shut than the whole impression dissolved, though it might be renewed at will, as it often was. It was in the same family that all the children at an early age took possession of "Oliver Twist" as a juvenile book. They wept over little Dick's farewell to Oliver, and shuddered when Nancy saw coffins, enjoying it all extremely, and taking in so little of it that it has appeared to them since as not one of the least of Dickens's glories that he could write a book about the scum of London which children may read and re-read well into their young girlhood without receiving even the shadow of an impression of any evil beyond pocket-picking and house-breaking and general hard-heartedness.

And so it might not be far from the truth to say that children can read anything. They can, and do, even now when they have a literature of their own; for persons who would be shocked at the idea of turning a child loose in an adult library, where things unsuitable might pass harmlessly over its head, think nothing of taking a book off a counter and presenting it to their little ones, they themselves knowing no more than the man in the moon what it contains, although certain that the contents, whatever they may be, will be readily assimilated by the youthful mind. Suppose simply that such a book is full of slang and bad grammar, the antediluvians had an advantage there: if you want that sort of thing to amuse children with, the language of thieves is peculiarly suitable, in so far that if ever the young people who devoured "Oliver Twist" had over among themselves any of the Dodger's and Charley Bates's racy expressions it was with a wholesome sense of its being highly improper; whereas one cannot imagine the little folk of to-day seeing any impropriety in an equally debased decoction of English—albeit somewhat more mildly drawn—when put into the mouths of children like themselves. Then, again, the ancient young people used to read Scott's and Cooper's novels, and found there much that was entirely beyond them, which they knew was only for grown persons, and therefore, though they read of love, courtship, and marriage, they remained as unsophisticated as before. But how is a child to be unsophisticated nowadays, when all these topics are manipulated for its especial benefit?—when there is a devoted boy in the story, and, in due course of time, proposal, engagement, and the wedding? In the same way one can affirm without fear of contradiction that the lads who formerly enjoyed pirates and Red Rovers from their parents' book-shelves had a healthier mental food than those who at present are provided with Rovers of their own, carefully adapted to their mental capacity, in the shape of small boys who meet the world single-handed and make their way to fame and fortune. Then, finally, were not the kings and courtiers, the Crusaders and Saracens, the Indians and pioneers of former days better training for the imagination than descriptions of picnics, skating-parties, and children's balls, enlivened with such small squabbles or adventures as are incident thereto? Realism has invaded even the children's department, and to that extent that there seems to be nothing left for fancy but to go off on a tangent in frantic imitation of Jules Verne or feeble copies of "Alice in Wonderland."

Of course this is not to deny that there are gems in children's literature which they may be thankful to possess and we may be glad to share with them: indeed, the foregoing observations should be taken simply to the effect that there is room for a choice among juvenile books, and very little choosing. We started out with the happy idea that reading-lessons cost nothing, and are come round to the conviction that it is a pity they are not expensive, that there is not some one who, for a consideration, would take the children in hand,—not only those who are expected to read by and by, but also the born readers,—and, through a judicious selection of what is within their range, gradually educate them up to a correct literary taste. For there is something sadder even than being totally unable to read, and that is reading a great deal and never anything worth while. What is worth while includes, naturally, much besides novels; but, then, a person who appreciates a good novel usually reads other good things; and, at all events, children must begin with fiction, and, even were they to end there, that this should be excellent of its kind is a step in the right direction. It would not be a bad aim to have in view that they should come by degrees to a just appreciation of Thackeray and his compeers. And where parents are unwilling—or, by reason of being themselves no readers, unable—to plan a course of reading to that effect, why, in all seriousness, should they not place the matter in the hands of some sound-minded family counsellor, who would thenceforward look after the children's literary taste, as the dentist looks after their teeth?

That would put an end to the singular anomaly by which parents, who doubtless mean to guard their sons and daughters from evil society as they would from the plague, know, as a matter of fact, nothing at all of their inmost companions. When the novel-devouring period is reached, this is especially remarkable: a mother may then look at her young daughter sitting apart, silent, entranced, drinking in what she takes for the true philosophy of life from some romance of modern society which has been recommended to her as "splendid" by the girls at school, and find no more appropriate reflection to make upon this spectacle than that "Mary is never so happy as when she is buried in a book." But one imagines the family counsellor, under similar circumstances, interesting himself or herself to discover what sort of a book it is that Mary is buried in, and, if it should prove to be a tissue of false sentiment, false pathos, and even false morals from beginning to end, directing her attention to that fact, and giving her as an antidote something which, whether grave or gay, amusing or affecting, should be written in good English and in sound taste.

Grace H. Peirce.