BOOKS FOR THE MILLION.
Ax excellent clergyman of the Winchester diocese has set going a syfitem to compete with those book-hawkers who distribute the literature for the lowest order of intellect. This literature is ex- tensive, at least in quantity ; greatly exceeding the amuant dis- tributed by the five great Christian, Bible, and Tract Societies. It was shown before a Committee of the flouse of Commons in 1851, that 29,000,000 immoral and infidel publications are dis- tributed annually ; last dying-speeches and execution-reports en- boy a like circulation. The Archdeacon of Winchester has esta- lished a machinery for sending out hawkers with counteractive literature, and the result has been highly successful. In order to carry off the instructive literature, such as will be attractive to the humbler orders is mingled with it, and it is found that there are purchasers in plenty. The books which are most freely demanded present a curious medley—the Pilgrim's Progress, Bogatzky's Golden Treasury, Church Services, [much in request among domestic servants,] Milton's Poems, Johnson's Dictionary, Richmond's Annals of the Poor, a History of the County; Robinson Crusoe, and the Cottage Gardener's Calendar. Now, considering the state of mind and the customs among the persons who consume these books, the popular taste effects a very fair selection, and ono which indicates a desire for improvement. Book-hawking, in this sense, may do good ; but it can after all be no more than a partial and a transit- ory process.
Three larger changes are going on, which will cut out the book- hawkers, both good and bad. In the first place, all the move- ments for a more general education cannot prove fruitless ; in some way or other the rising generation will be better-educated ; and being better-educated, it will rouse a taste to demand a bet- ter literature. It is not bad to begin with Bunyan, Milton, Johnson, Defoe, Paxton, and books on the greatest event of the year ; but as the bulk of the people acquires a capacity for more ready reading, we shall have the list extended.
In the second place, the book-trade at large is conforming itself by degrees to this enlarged prospective demand. Some time ago we pointed out the necessity for meeting the wants of a country where reading would not be confined to the wealthy classes, by publishing books at a price suitable to the incomes of the million. Constable, the Edinburgh publisher, anticipated that day by at least a quarter of a century, and Charles Knight followed him : but individual publishers necessarily presented only a limited number of works for perusal. The thing needed is the range of a whole library, at popular prices ; and this we are gradually ac- quiring. The catalogues of Routledge and other very cheap publishers comprise many novels, which are to a great extent a short cut to a knowledge of life and society, and also really standard works. We find, for example, Bancroft's History of America, Prescott's Histories of the greatest epoch of Spain, Southey's Life of Nelson, and the like : but it is probable that the standard library of all classes of literature will gradually be reproduced at a scale of prices enabling the million to be the owners of that library. The Americans have gone far in this path, reproducing old works, and freshly producing new works of high character, at charges which secure for each book its tens of thousands of readers. At home the supply is gradually extend- ing itself in every quarter ; there are few of the small towns in which there is not some stock of such wares accumulating; and they can be obtained at every principal railway-station. Ulti- mately, perhaps, books of the kind will be sold wherever sta- tionery is in demand ; and if the million can simply read, it will be selecting its own amusement and instruction according to the standards which it brings away from the primary school.
The third change is quite as essential as the two others to an universal diffusion of instructive literature. It is that change in the opinion of the teaching classes which will correct their pe- dantic disposition to separate instructive and entertaining litera- ture. It was nothing short of ignorance which induced the self- elected teaching classes to reckon as "good books" only those which professedly dealt in religion or dogmatic morals. The first essential condition of all teaching is to excite an interest in the mind to be taught, and to begin with pure didactics is beginning at the wrong end. It is even so when the pupil is in the presence of the teacher; but when the pupil has nothing with him save the white paper and the black type, it needs other incentives be- fore he will submit voluntarily to the process of being taught. He is, for example, far more likely to receive the lesson on a pious trust in Providence when his mind has been seized with the deep- est interest in the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and has been by the same course prepared to receive the natural reflections upon the rule of the creation, than if the reflection is abruptly thrust upon him by a stranger, who awakens no interest, and who ap- pears before him, unintroduced, in the shape of a cold and per- haps ill-printed tied. But the teaching classes are becoming gradually weaned from this ignorant and narrow view of their own resources, and may take their fair share in contributing to the library for the million. If they do so in obedience to the re- quisite conditions, they will not fail ultimately to have their share in influencing the mind of the million.
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