almost without exception. Even in
instrumental music, outside of dance rhythms, whose suggestion of the
delights of bodily motion is a reason of their popularity, the beginner
likes program music of some kind, or at least its suggestion. So it is in
literature. With those who are intellectually young, whether young in
years or not, the narrative form of expression is all in all. It is, of
course, in all the arts, a most important mode, even in advanced stages of
development. We shall never be able to do without narrative in painting,
sculpture, music and poetry; but wherever, in a given community, the
preference for this form of expression in any art is excessive, we may be
sure that appreciation of that form of art is newly aroused. This is an
interesting symptom and a good sign. To be sure, apparent intellectual
youth may be the result of intellectual decadence; there is a second as
well as a first childhood, but it is not difficult to distinguish between
them. In general, if a large proportion of those in a community who like
to look at pictures, prefer such as "tell a story," this fact, if the
number of the appreciative is at the same time increasing, means a newly
stimulated interest in art. And similarly, if a large proportion of those
persons who enjoy reading prefer the narrative forms of literature, while
at the same time their total numbers are on the increase, this surely
indicates a newly aroused interest in books. And this is precisely the
situation in which we find ourselves to-day. A very large proportion of
the literature that we circulate is in narrative form--how large a
proportion I daresay few of us realize. Not only all the fiction, adult
and juvenile, but all the history, biography and travel, a large
proportion of literature and periodicals, some of the sciences, including
all reports of original research, and a lesser proportion of the arts,
philosophy and religion, are in this form. It may be interesting to
estimate the percentage of narrative circulated by a large public library,
and I have attempted this in the case of the New York public library for
the year ending July 1, 1906.

Class Per cent. Estimated per
Fiction cent. of narrative
Juvenile 26
Adult 32 ........... 58 58
History ................. 6 6
Biography ............... 3 3
Travel .................. 3