Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/234

224 C. F. Adams matter through the agency of those hbraries and of the press, what those who compose the great mass of the community are reading, what enters into their intellectual nutriment, and thence passes into the secretions of the body politic, — this, I imagine, is a subject chiefly of surmise. The field is one upon which I do not now pro- pose to enter. Too large, it is also a pathless wilderness. I would, however, earnestly commend it to some more competent treatment at an early convention of librarians or publishers. To-day we must confine ourselves to history. For what, in the way of history, is the demand ? Who are at present the popular historical writers ? How can the lessons of the past be most readily and most effectually brought home to the mind and thoughts of the great reading public, vastly greater and more intelligent now than ever before ? This is something upon which the census throws no light. There is a widespread impression among those more or less qualified to form an opinion that the general capacity for sustained reading and thinking has not increased or been strengthened with the passage of the years. On the contrary, the indications, it is currently sup- posed, are rather of emasculation. Everything must now be made easy and short. There is a constant demand felt, especially by our periodical press, for information on all sorts of subjects, — historical, philosophical, scientific, — but it must be set forth in what is known as a popular style, that is, introduced into the reader in a species of sugared capsule, and without leaving any annoying taste on the intellectual palate. The average reader, it is said, wants to know something concerning all the topics of the day ; but, while it is highly desirable he should be gratified in this laudable, though languid, craving, he must not be fatigued in the effort of acquisition, and he will not submit to be bored. It is then further argued that this was not the case formerly ; that in what are commonly alluded to as "the good old times," — always the times of the grand- parents, — people had fewer books, and fewer people read ; but those who did read, deterred neither by number of pages nor by dryness of treatment, were equal to the feat of reading. To-day, on the contrary, almost no one rises to more than a magazine article ; a volume appalls. This is an extremely interesting subject of inquiry, were the real facts only attainable. Unfortunately they are not. We are forced to deal with impressions ; and impressions, always vague, are usually deceptive. At the same time, when glimpses of a more or less re- mote past do now and again reach us, they seem to indicate mental conditions calculated to excite our special wonder. We do know, for instance, that in the olden days, — before public libraries and peri-