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Periodicals (Scientific) 1466

Mr. Cowell says that during the year ending 31st August, 1877, 453,585
volumes were issued at the reference library alone (Liverpool Free Public
Library); of these 170,531 were strictly novels. The high-percentage of
novel reading is not confined to Free Public Libraries, for we find that
in the Odd Fellows' Library of San Francisco, in 1874, 64,509 volumes of
Prose Fiction were lent out of a total of 78,219. The other high figures
being Essays, 2280; History, 1823; Biography and Travels, 1664. In the
College of the City of New York, of the books taken out by students
between Nov. 1876, and Nov. 1877, 1043 volumes were Novels, the next
highest numbers were Science, 153; Poetry, 133; History, 130.[15]

In considering this question one naturally asks if the masterpieces of our
great authors, which every one should read, are to be mixed up with the
worthless novels constantly being published in the condemnation of
Fiction; but, to some extent, both Mr. Cowell and Mr. Kay answer this. The
first of these gentlemen writes: "As to the better class novels, which are
so graphic in their description of places, costumes, pageantry, men, and
events, I regret to say that they are not the most popular with those who
stand in need of their instructive descriptions. I could generally find
upon the library shelves 'Harold,' 'The Last of the Barons,' 'Westward
Ho!' 'Hypatia,' 'Ivanhoe,' 'Waverley,' 'Lorna Doone,' etc., when not a
copy of the least popular of the works of Mrs. Henry Wood, 'Ouida,' Miss
Braddon, or Rhoda Broughton were to be had." Mr. Kay corroborates this
opinion in his paper.

Most of us recognize the value of honest fiction for children and the
overwrought brains of busy men, but the reading of novels of any kind can
only be justified as a relaxation, and it is a sad fact that there is a
large class of persons who will read nothing but novels and who call all
other books dry reading. Upon the minds of this class fiction has a most
enervating effect, and it is not to be expected that ratepayers will
desire to increase this class by the indiscriminate supply of novels to
the Free Libraries. Some persons are so sanguine as to believe that
readers will be gradually led from the lower species of reading to the
higher; but there is little confirmation of this hope to be found in the
case of the confirmed novel readers we see around us.

The librarian who, with ample funds for t