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Show J What to Read Archbishop Montgomery on Modern 1 Novels and Newspapers. . 1 r;-hbih"P Montgomery of San 'rantiH". in the course of a lecture , Vlmt to Head and What Not to j, ,, delivered the other evening, un-j,t un-j,t -he auspices of the Catholic Truth t.,ry ,,f that city, said: We otisht to have given to us in the f.l0'. room a judgment that would f (ijtingui.-'h almost instinctively the i r,flj froI11 the bad, and if we could j.ave that given to us in the school r.-wms we would go out into the world : arm(.,i as few are. Today it. cannot bo l d..ne as it ought to be dose. it Why cannot it be done? One rea- it,,n we have banished ordinarily (,,i:n the school room the subject on vhkh we ought after all to have the u-jpest and profoundest training God. and what He means toward us, and v.hat we mean toward Him. Certainly v... ha.-e crowded into the curriculum j f.i ir.U' h that boys and girls attending j vhool are expected to be taught thai I it if impofiMhle that nine out of ten I that t" school can pass out of it I with anything much more than a smat-Ming smat-Ming of .subjects and studies. The nn re study of this or that will smouiti to little if we have not got the ripht principles. You might teach a I lv mathematics until he was gray and I vhat pood would it do if he did not I uuuei.nand about cube roots? There- f.irf. knowing as we do what . life is after passing from the school room, knowing what those -principles are, 1 '' the school room ought to give us . !!)ve principles in our early days as ; vi!! .tive us discriminating judgment : distinguish gof.d from bad in what V" r.fxi and hoar, hut take n as it is at present, I say ; 1: if aimost impossible to give in the Khn'il room that discriminating taste i J i tilt ite. a relish for that which ; c.ol instead of that which is bad I a. id we need this cultivation because v' o; a violent nature, and are "1 it" i i r to that which is hurtful j 1 ma. i divide up this matter of read-t read-t ri tw r three classes. 1 shall I I ' Sl''"' as light literature of which j - is a cveat deal published at tho I . 'Tu tune ;,nd under this heading I i ' ..i, my own convenience, speak i 1 ss, and of literature that I i ii- 1 it utterly harmless. The in who gives himself or i exclusive ly to the reading of f '"' "I'lc acquires a flippant and 1 that is in o'-ntradistine- f 1 tl,;" seriousnnss of thought of i: ; ' i. vf !i. :iv. n, of immortality of the !: ..i.d its r-sp nsibiJiiie.-;. He who h ' ",lIv su.-h literature to the (xclu-! (xclu-! ' "' hit!Ks that are serious, things r ' i -'K "i mutters vital to the soul. . 1 CI P a dwarf so far as the soul !s- " r and the higher things of it. I ' i'l'ess. no man has a high-t high-t ' L" ' i "i- it than I have; it has ' " L'r the last twenty-four r ? ' ni.nvn fivfpjently day and i. " '" ''act Mith the rejorters n .-tnd 1 never met a class of :' o w h-ini I ha vc gotten along '" in-no gently, and wit'i 1 ho!i th press in high C1 t i i -i wonderful jiowcr. one Ii - ' " '0 underrate. Hut I say .'ss is not doing half th 1 " '""'Id do nor half the good '' t" Uo. Hut whose fault ' 'i nut lay it to the .ro.-s; 1 Jay ; the people, the public, i 1 .- ..r the press. 1 do not say -. s papers are venal they - -rally speaking. Xever- i-.-s is a thing that ha " ' business principles. It I'l'l'-ic ordinarily what the - Aioi hence it is that the ; " "n into that necessity of f "" 1 believe is a very great " so'-k-ty at large publish- h 1 of"K that liappens. The pa- ' "" 1 :i"t the news feels that '"in.. ,. , ii i').er has gotten a s.oop I ', be a divorce case, may it may be anything you 1 ' 'be paper that has not !: . " !,i it has nnt the news. r - fn-nds. t. Paul says that , - ' -oil" things that ought not r ' iii'-ntioned among you. and ' "' very things sometime s ' "'"'', d-mands and if their , r 'Iocs not publish it they y - ' -"oie j.aper that does. Ij'rc 1'iiblishers claim that " to diminish crime. Now, l'0lj(,.j. nw things is good. Mr. Uk S;1VS if you want to kill the t. K 1 ' ulate them, publish their t l-""ii-, let the world see their 1 may do for the trusts, but- 'iin"" ' 'io iihva"s fr the Police J va,. v 1 "ce says in his Essay, on , ls ' ,s - monster 0f so frightful a . n M i-a.ej needs but to be seen." I irjbi,vh u iTinciple upon .which ua'? their arguments. Now,. Pope didn't stop there. Here is the whole couplet: i "Vine is a monster of so frightful a mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet, seen too eft, familiar with her face. We first endure, then pity, then embrace." em-brace." Constant reading of salacious details familiarizes us with crime, and familiarity famil-iarity begets contempt. The public itself it-self ought to correct this evil. Don't demand that criminal happenings be published with great detail. There are two kinds of light litera-! litera-! ture. One is bad and is intended to be bad. The other is not bad, does no good, and time given to reading it is lost. What is bad and intended to be bad? It is the realistic novel. Now, I have not come here to denounce novel reading. read-ing. Sometimes I read them myself. The realistic novel what is it? It is simply to paint the animal man ' or woman. In jdain truth, that is what it is. We are animal in a sense, and the realistic novel is one where we can find a man or woman who has gotten j as near to the animal as possible. The realistic noveMst is the apostle of ' dirt. To give you an example Zola. I J hate to mention, the man as he has I gone. T am not .his judge. If he had j not left some works behind I - should not have mentioned his name. It is not of him I speak but of his .works. If he j had taken them with him I would not j have stated a' word about him. One of our American writers has recently re-cently declared that Zola was indecent but not immoral. Let it stand so. That is. the best that can be said for him, that he is indecent but not immoral To give you an imitation of the character of the author, it turned out the day of liis funeral that he had two j families in Paris. Only one appep.red j around his bier. But it was known by ja few friends that he had two families. It is possible that our American riter 1 wou'd state that that was 'indecent, I but' not immoral." Hut I do not know that we ought to complain. It is said j that it h:s been decided in New Vork ! that a man might have two wives, if h j kept one in New Jersey and one in New j York. Therefore, it will not do for us I to lay down the rule too strictly. Now. I my dear friends, lest you might feel that I am too hard on Zola, let me giv ! you the criticism of one of. his own I countrymen. M. Hrunctirre says of Zola: "I can j nr,t protest too strongly agrinst ih j picture f French society given in the j novels e.f Zola. His dominant quality is force of tigure of the imagination, 'but it must be added that never was J any observer less accurate, less con-! con-! For minus, less true. The peasants o, j M. Zola are not French peasants, his i workmen are not French workmen, his j midd'e classes are not French middle I -laf:.es nor are his soldiers and officers Ir rench soldiers and ofiicers. We Jiave j faults in France, but we have not this I sustained grossness. this absolute lack I of morality, this cynicism which Zola I depicts. His French people are caricatures, cari-catures, pessimistic and calumnious ! caricatures. I do not deny him talent, j but it is difficult for me to value talent I when it lends itself to such ignoble I tasks." Now, these works hardly one o" which fell under 100.000 copies, are read today in almost every language, ii. Knglish. French. German and Italian. Itook the trouble to telephone to the public library in this city, and asked if they had Zola; the librarian told me they had three or four volumes, all bought with your money, and they were the very ones in which he spits in the face of the Catholic church. Some are too dirty and vile to have on the shelves of your library; It were better that these were the same, because they would be so dirty that some decent per. on would come along and put them in ths fire, but these have just passed, the law of decency. . I telephoned to a branch office in the afternoon. They told me that they were all out-they were being read. I telephoned to another branch office and received the same statement, but they told me they would very kindly get me a copy ?f I wanted one. Another responded re-sponded with the message that they had copies some years ago and banished ban-ished them. The archbishop spoke of the great safeguard of the censorship of literature litera-ture by the Catholic church. He recommended rec-ommended the following rules to be observed in the selection of what should 'be read: . . First Every literary production that promotes, encourages and strengthens truth end virtue may be read with profit -to-the soul and intellect. Second-Every literary production not opposed in its spirit and bearing to truth and virtue and implying a necessity ne-cessity of both the one and the other may be read with safety. Third Every literary" production, be its artistic qualities what they may, that scoffs at religion, disregards truth, looks upon morality as a prejudice in which men have been educated; that speaks lightly of any of these, that' throws the least aspersion upon them, that even in a negative way, by losing sight of them and treating subjects as though these eternal principles were not, thus insinuates that life was good : without them, every such production is to be condemned and its reading discouraged. dis-couraged. 1 |
