encouragement, by neglect or by teaching, of the taste that demands this
kind of fiction, and the tendency of the novel to become what this taste
demands.

Before considering the common school, however, we have to notice a
phenomenon in letters--namely, the evolution of the modern newspaper as a
vehicle for general reading-matter. Not content with giving the news, or
even with creating news and increasing its sensational character, it
grasps at the wider field of supplying reading material for the million,
usurping the place of books and to a large extent of periodicals. The
effect of this new departure in journalism is beginning to attract
attention. An increasing number of people read nothing except the
newspapers. Consequently, they get little except scraps and bits; no
subject is considered thoroughly or exhaustively; and they are furnished
with not much more than the small change for superficial conversation.
The habit of excessive newspaper reading, in which a great variety of
topics is inadequately treated, has a curious effect on the mind. It
becomes demoralized, gradually loses the power of concentration or of
continuous thought, and even loses the inclination to read the long
articles which the newspaper prints. The eye catches a thousand things,
but is detained by no one. Variety, which in limitations is wholesome in
literary as well as in physical diet, creates dyspepsia when it is
excessive, and when the literary viands are badly cooked and badly served
the evil is increased. The mind loses the power of discrimination, the
taste is lowered, and the appetite becomes diseased. The effect of this
scrappy, desultory reading is bad enough when the hashed compound
selected is tolerably good. It becomes a very serious matter when the
reading itself is vapid, frivolous, or bad. The responsibility of
selecting the mental food for millions of people is serious. When, in the
last century, in England, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful