An Evil Disease by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1886

An Evil Disease.

By Editor

THE following from the San Francisco Chronicle we commend to the practical consideration of all parents and teachers:—

"Of the flood of novels which has deluged the literary market during the last twelve-month, the less said the better. The greater part of them have already been relegated to the upper shelves of the libraries, where, it is to be hoped, they will be allowed to remain. Between reading them and complete mental idleness it would be difficult to say which is worse, so thoroughly false are the ideals of life which they present. The appetite for these worthless novels grows with what it feeds on; and if the present mania for devouring current fiction continues, we may have the pathologists discussing a new disease of modern civilization—the novel-reading habit. It destroys all taste for better literature, and is one of the most pernicious results of the book-making processes. To counteract this growing tendency for worthless literature should be one of the objects of all teachers who have the cause of genuine education near at heart. They can do much in the class room to inculcate a taste for good literature, and in no other way can they exert so wholesome an influence for good upon their pupils."

This pernicious habit is becoming more and more prevalent, and parents and teachers cannot be too earnest, nor too diligent, in counteracting the baleful influence of the "flood of novels" which deluges the country. A taste for good reading can be cultivated; it can be done easily if begun in time; but when this novel-reading habit, which the Chronicle properly terms a "disease," is once acquired, it is as hard to overcome as is any other habit of intemperance; for this is intemperance, mental intemperance it is true, but none the less real, and none the less destructive, on that account. We said "none the less real and none the less destructive." We might better say that because it is mental it is the rather more destructive; for by this "disease" the mind is so debased, the will is so weakened, that it is impossible for the individual to resist the evil that is met on every hand, to say nothing of the evil that is instilled into the mind by the very reading itself. What are you reading? What are your children reading?