As everything has a cause, it would be worth while to inquire
whether the encyclopaedic newspaper is in response to a demand, to a
taste created by our common schools. Or, to put the question in another
form, does the system of education in our common schools give the pupils
a taste for good literature or much power of discrimination? Do they come
out of school with the habit of continuous reading, of reading books, or
only of picking up scraps in the newspapers, as they might snatch a hasty
meal at a lunch-counter? What, in short, do the schools contribute to the
creation of a taste for good literature?
Great anxiety is felt in many quarters about the modern novel. It is
feared that it will not be realistic enough, that it will be too
realistic, that it will be insincere as to the common aspects of life,
that it will not sufficiently idealize life to keep itself within the
limits of true art. But while the critics are busy saying what the novel
should be, and attacking or defending the fiction of the previous age,
the novel obeys pretty well the laws of its era, and in many ways,
especially in the variety of its development, represents the time.
Regarded simply as a work of art, it may be said that the novel should be
an expression of the genius of its writer conscientiously applied to a
study of the facts of life and of human nature, with little reference to
the audience. Perhaps the great works of art that have endured have been
so composed.
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