GOOD READING

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 220, 13 June 1933, Page 8

GOOD READING

Its Importance Stressed PUBLISHER’S VIEWS Dangers of the Present Day Concern that one of the effects of the present period, or depression rnigiit be to restrict the natural desire or the young to acquire ail mat is bjjst in life by tue readii-g of good books wis expressed by Air. George G. Harrup, managing director arid founder of lire well-known Loudon publishing firm of Harrap, in an interview yesterday. Mr. Harrup has been some luoudis in Australia on a business mission, and he is a through passenger on the Makura, eu route to ban Francisco and England. Mr. Harrap said that as New Zealand appeared to be experiencing the effects of the world-wide' wave of depression it must be difficult for many people to purchase as many books as they had done formerly, in Australia he felt that this was tending to disturb the careful reading habits of the community, and if so, it could not fall to have a very detrimental effect on the best interests of the country. Should difficulties in obtaining books lead New Zealanders to read less than their wont, undoubtedly the effect would be most undesirable, for no community in these days of progress could hope with fewer books and less reading to retain Its place in the larger world of intellectual ideas.

Schools Being Starved.

He had found that in some places he had visited public money was no longer being spent for the provision of juvenile libraries. The schools, in other words, were being starved. It had long been held by the best educational thought that the school library was one of the most valued adjuncts to education, if children were' not given the opportunity of reading carefully chosen books in the school library to form the habit of reading, few were likely to develop later into readers of such books as could materially assist the Intellectual development of the nation.

Mr. Harrap said that one like himself, who had 'spent 50 long years tn publishing books, could see some of the present tendencies withoui experiencing a feeling of depression. His interests were not by any means confined to producing and selling books. Always he had been a great lover of books, and as he had had to leave school at the age of 14 with an unfinished education he had great reason to value that education which could spring from a reading habit and the love of good books. Debt to Literature. Looking back over the road that he himself had trodden, and feeling with deep gratitude his debt to literature, Mr. Harrup said that he desired wuerever he possibly equid to instil in others the same uesue for want he knew to be so greatly worth while, lie hoped that all in New Zealand would realise the importance of this, and tnat those woo were grown up would take upon themselves part oi the burden of responsibility for seeing that children were brought to the well of intellectual ideas which awaited them if there was no dearth to the supply of good books.

The publishers in London had been as active as ever, and there was a constant stream of most excellent books to awaken in the young a taste for literature, art, music, ami all the other things which should help them to grow into men and women likely to be worthy citizens of a great State. One could not tail to be struck by the very large number of novels dealing with the question of sex, Mr. Harrap said when asked to discuss some of the trends in contemporary literature. The prominence given to this pause of human nature would convey the impression that the people of the twentieth century 'must be highly immoral. This was entirely a false impression. The fact that novelists had concentrated so much on what was not true must make it impossible for them to take a place in literature which was accorded to those who justly reflected the life of their time.

Question of Censorship.

The question of censorship often arose in England. He was quite certain that there were many novels published that should be censored. But the difficulty was to find a qualified censor, and this difficulty was so great that he believed it to be in practice insuperable. When he reflected upon the books that in the past had been censored in England, such as George Aloore’s “Esther Waters,” or Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure,” both books now claimed as entirely worthy additions to English literature, it was unthinkable that public opinion at this date would publicly condemn them or the authors who wrote them. When a book was censored, attention was naturally drawn to it, with the. result that it was usually assured of a larger circle of readers than it otherwise would have had. Thus, the very object of censorship failed. For these two difficulties, Mr. Harrap considered that public censorship of books should be avoided. Books, he thought, must be left to find their own level in public estimation, which meant usually that those of a poor and salacious character were quickly forgotten.