A Librarians Open Shelf | Page 3

"duty" to read it, is apt to conclude, before he has
finished the second volume, that his is a case where inclination (or in
this instance disinclination) is the proper guide.
As a matter of fact, the formation of a cultivated and permanent taste
for good reading is generally a matter of lifelong education. It must be
begun when the child reads his first book. An encouraging sign for the
future is the care that is now taken in all good libraries to supervise the
reading of children and to provide for them special quarters and
facilities. A somewhat disheartening circumstance, on the other hand, is
the multiplication of annotated and abbreviated children's editions of all
sorts of works that were read by the last generation of children without
any such treatment. This kind of boned chicken may be very well for
the mental invalid, but the ordinary child prefers to separate his meat
from the "drumstick" by his own unaided effort, and there is no doubt
that it is better for him to do so.
In the following table, the average circulation of first volumes, second
volumes, etc., is given for each of seven classes of works. The falling
off from volume to volume is noticeable in each class. It is most
marked in science, and least so, as might be expected, in fiction. Yet it
is remarkable that there should be any falling off at all in fiction. The
record shows that the proportion of readers who cannot even read to the
end of a novel is relatively large. These are doubtless the good people
who speak of Dickens as "solid reading" and who regard Thackeray
with as remote an eye as they do Gibbon. For such "The Duchess"
furnishes good mental pabulum, and Miss Corelli provides flights into
the loftier regions of philosophy.
Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. CLASS I.
II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII IX. X. XI. XII.
History 10.1 6.9 4.9 4.4 4.6 4.3 2.5 2.8 1.0 0.5 1.0 3.0 Biography 7.2
5.1 3.0 2.3 1.6 1.0 1.6 1.2 1.0 2. Travel 9.2 7.9 Literature 7.3 5.9 3.5
3.8 5.3 6.6 19.0 15.0 21.0 Arts 4.7 3.7 3.0 Sciences 5.2 2.7 1.5 Fiction
22.0 18.9 15.8 16. 26. 16.
The figures in the table, as has been stated, are averages, and the
number of cases averaged decreases rapidly as we reach the later
volumes, because, of course, the number of works that run beyond four
or five volumes is relatively small. Hence the figures for the higher

volumes are irregular. Any volume may have been withdrawn
separately for reference without any intention of reading its
companions. Among the earlier volumes such use counts for little,
owing to the large number of volumes averaged, while it may and does
make the figures for the later volumes irregular. Thus, under History
the high number in the twelfth column represents one-twelfth volume
of Froude, which was taken out three times, evidently for separate
reference, as the eleventh was withdrawn but once. Furthermore, apart
from this irregularity, the figures for the later volumes are relatively
large, for a work in many volumes is apt to be a standard, and although
its use falls rapidly from start to finish enough readers persevere to the
end to make the final averages compare unduly well with the initial
ones where the high use of the same work is averaged in with smaller
use of dozens of other first and second volumes. That the falling off
from beginning to end in such long works is much more striking than
would appear from the averages alone may be seen from the following
records of separate works in numerous volumes:
VOLUMES I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X HISTORY
Grote, "Greece" 11 6 5 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 Bancroft, "United States" 22 10 6
8 10 8 Hume, "England" 24 7 5 2 1 1 Gibbon, "Rome" 38 12 7 3 4 6
Motley, "United Netherlands" 7 1 1 1 Prescott, "Ferdinand and
Isabella" 20 4 2 Carlyle, "French Revolution" 18 10 8 McCarthy, "Our
Own Times" 27 8 11
BIOGRAPHY
Bourienne, "Memoirs of Napoleon" 19 18 9 7 Longfellow's "Life" 6 4 2
Nicolay and Hay, "Lincoln" 6 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 Carlyle, "Frederick the
Great" 7 3 2 2 2
FICTION
Dumas, "Vicomte de Bragelonne" 31 30 24 22 21 16 Dumas, "Monte
Cristo" 27 17 18 Dickens, "Our Mutual Friend" 5 4 1 0 Stowe, "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" 37 24
Of course, these could be multiplied indefinitely. They are sufficiently
interesting apart from all comment. One would hardly believe without
direct evidence that of thirty-one persons who began one of Dumas's
romances scarcely