Another place for good judgment is in selecting the kind of periodical literature we read. There is a great variety. Some are too light; some are too heavy. Some are frivolous in spirit and purpose; others are so solid that they weigh down the eyelids of the reader. It is not necessary that good reading should be dull, lifeless and soporific. On the other hand, the periodicals which live upon love of fiction and curiosity are too light for the use of people who are living on purpose and for some proper ends. The popular magazine is too light. It is, at best, like dress worn to be looked at rather than for comfort and warmth. The ornamental has become too prominent and too monopolizing. The readers of the popular periodical add little to their wisdom and nothing to their aspirations. Really good results from periodical reading must be had in one of two ways or not at all. Wisdom or inspiration—or both—should come to us from such reading. We are stating the creed and the platform of The Chautauquan. Its special aims are these two: We wish to increase the knowledge of our readers; we wish also to inspire them with two forms of zeal, one which pursues wisdom, and another which aims at sound and pure character. We believe that we help our readers by giving them information and an appetite for it, and that those who read The Chautauquan carefully are stimulated by it to intellectual and moral effort. It has seemed to us that the inspiring quality has disappeared from the average monthly. Indeed, if we look for it in these days we must search in periodicals which have a definite and pronounced moral purpose. There is a pestilent theory that good literature must have only an artistic purpose, that to be in bloody earnest is not good form in letters. The Chautauquan is in earnest; it is the organ of one of the most vigorous and aggressive organizations for popular improvement, and its tone and matter are fixed for it by the high purpose of that organized crusade against ignorance and its consequences. We are not content to please or to satisfy passing curiosity. The whim or incident of the hour gets little of our attention. We are concerned with permanent and useful things. We desire to enlarge the horizon of our readers and fix their interest upon the best and tested objects of living. We are confident that any habitual reader of ours will be made wiser and better. There is not much glitter about such results, and yet they will shine when aimless literature has long ceased to glitter.
EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.
What is in a name? Isaac Newton recently committed suicide in New York; Wilbur Fisk is traveling a circuit in Iowa; George Washington was lately sent to prison in Georgia, and Andrew Jackson has escaped from jail in Louisiana. Any attentive newspaper reader can continue the list of great names filling modest roles in contemporary history. Perhaps it is a pity we have not names enough to go around.
In reply to an inquirer: You will learn to write by writing, and by always writing as well as you can.
“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.”
And art is a fruit of laborious practice. Spend as much time writing as you would in learning to play a piano; then you will begin to begin learning the art.