DO MANY OF US HEAD MUCH?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7296, 8 January 1902, Page 2

DO MANY OF US HEAD MUCH?

p AN EXPERT OPINION.

Mr G. K. Fortescue, "Keeper of the Printed Books" in the British Museum, in an address to the Library Association Recently, after giving some valuable details aboub the Museum catalogue, now complete, started (says the "Spectator") a ratlher curious enquiry. Do many Englishmen read! much? He evidently thought the habit far less firmly fixed than it is the custom to assume, and' one would like to know what tihe itruth is. Our own impression is that, allowing always for a small percentage of men who read voraciously, Sir Fortescue is in the right, and tihat an' immense majority are content witli newspapens ; but the evidence is very imperfect. London publishers complain, and country distributors often declare, tbat their book trade isp worthless, while the'' number of cultivated houses in whioh there is no book-room, and but few books, ia very large. The extreme Teadin'ess to borrow, too, suggests a readiness to do without ; so does Dhe great want of inventiveness in upholsterans' shops in 'the way of bookshelves. On th© other hand, the towns welcome public libraries with some heartiness, and as soon as they are established a section of 'the citizens begin to frequent them, While oculists deplore a marked increase in Iflie general habit of reading, and especially of reading too rapidly, a practice which taxes the eyes most severely. One would like to make a house-to-house visitation of a few picked streets in town and country, and ascertain statistically the number of books intended to be read' whioh exist in each, but a Charles Booth of literature is, we fear, hardly to be looked for. Certain it is that men are not ashamed to say, "We do not read much," though they nowadays often add, "We have no time." Fifty years -ago "they would not have added th© excuse. •