L.
A. HILL
The first thing necessary to the pleasure of reading is that when
people are young they should acquire the habit of reading. This is becoming
more and more difficult. Before I was aware of things in the world; the Penny
Post had already begun to make a change adverse to
reading, by consuming a vast amount of time in correspondence that was
unnecessary, trivial, or boring. Railways have altered people’s habits by
making them move about much more. But railways have this compensating advantage
that although they take people much away from home, a long railway journey
affords a first-rate opportunity for reading. They were not, therefore, an
unmixed disadvantage. But now things are changing. The motor-car is altogether
unfavourable to reading. People consume more time in moving about than they
did; and they consume it under conditions which, even for people with good
eyes, must make reading difficult, if not impossible. The telephone is a deadly
disadvantage; it cuts time up into fragments and irritates the spirit.
Wireless, with all its delights, is now being added as a distraction to divert
people from time that might be given to the pleasure of reading. The cinema is
another change in the same direction, and flying is becoming more and more
common. All these things must make it more difficult for successive generations
to acquire the habit of reading, and, if that habit be acquired, to maintain
it. Even before all these changes, it was not easy to maintain the habit, but
it could be done.
