A Neglected Field.
There is opportunity in full, a vast field to exploit in the writing
of juveniles, to use the term applied to that branch of literature
which appeals to the young. It is especially the case in stories
appealing to growing girls who, having passed from the excellent _John
Martin’s Book_ stage and into the _St. Nicholas_ age, are unwilling
to leap forthright into Gene Stratton Porter and Harold Bell Wright.
In England, and imported into the eastern states, there used to be a
well edited journal called the _Girls’ Own Paper_, but it is imported
no longer. No one has quite taken the place of Louisa May Alcott, or
Margaret Sidney with her Pepper Series.
Good stories for boys too are comparatively rare, though the _Youth’s
Companion_, leader in this field, pays well, is well edited and widely
read. Lads of a past generation fared far better for reading matter
than those of today. There was a border land as it were, a literature
that interested men as well as boys of spirit. The work of Jules
Verne, so admirably translated, is with us and our publishers, sadly
neglected. His books, together with the stories of adventure by Paul de
Chaillu, led millions of lads to higher reading planes. Then there was
Harrison Ainsworth with his semi-historical fiction, Ballantyne with
his short tales of fire-fighters, sailors, lifeboat men and others in
adventurous callings, and Thomas Hughes and his host of followers with
bright school-boy tales. England has some good work in that direction
today, especially in what is being done by Henry Newbolt who writes of
old warriors and new, of deeds of derring-do and wild adventure, nor
should we omit Frank T. Bullen with his “Cruise of the Cachalot” and
other tales, or Basil Lubbock, fit successor to Dana. I particularly
urge ambitious writers to look into this field of literature. Our lads
today are fed up to nausea with tales of Boy Scouts, square-chinned
lads who, single-handed, routed German regiments, captains of industry
in embryo, amateur detectives and all that sort of thing. What we
need, is, not to try to rob boyhood of its golden days and to thrust
ideas of business success into them, but to offer them food for lively
imaginations. Give them reading for reading’s sake and not for some
ulterior motive. Boys do not want “lessons” in books any more than
they need “lessons” in a ball game. There is where I would take issue
with Franklin K. Matthews of the Boy Scout movement who, not so long
ago at a publishers’ convention, said that there was a great field for
exploitation in the ten million boys hungry for reading matter. So far
so good, but, urging publishers to cultivate this field, he quoted
the wife of a college professor with approval who had expressed her
desire to “do something to keep the boys sensibly occupied on Sunday
afternoons” and had added that “parents do not believe in dare-devil
books which would be of interest to boys.”
Now I hold that if we are to raise a generation of readers, we must do
exactly contrary to that which is here suggested. Consider. If you read
the Matthews’ quotation with care, you catch a faint and fusty flavor
that recalls “best” rooms with cloth-covered round tables bearing books
set at mathematically arranged distances apart, radiating from a center
of imitation fruit, done in wax, covered with a glass shade. You will
also get a sense of a prim lady handing you a copy of Samuel Smiles’
“Self Help,” with the injunction, “Be good, because it’s Sunday.”
With no respect whatever for anyone’s opinion, when Mr. Matthews and
the wife of a college professor, together with the objecting parents
attempt to exercise surveillance over the boy’s reading, and affect the
illimitable conceit that they know what is, and what is not, proper,
they not only stultify themselves, but proclaim themselves the enemies
of boys, and, further, take the first step towards disrupting an
organization that has a power for good--an organization that so far has
not been captured for ulterior motives. Frenzied with the fashionable
fever for prohibition, they rush to join that
Sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd, perverse antipathies:
In falling out with that or this
And finding somewhat still amiss.
Sturdy of growth though the Boy Scout movement is, be sure that
any reptant Puritanical interference will most assuredly result in
labefaction.
A boy is an unspoilt man, and these are the elements that enter into
his character: enthusiasm, fervor, courage and generosity. A boy is
both unmoral and unreligious. He has a sublime contempt of custom and
of conventionality, and is almost destitute of selfishness. Moreover,
he is assured of his right to his own opinion and the correctness of
his own choice. That he is a chosen instrument for the emancipation of
the human race: that he, once untrammeled, can achieve the triumph of
justice over centuries of oppression; that, once attaining manhood, he
will right all wrongs, he is as certain as he is of his own existence.
His heroes, he insists, shall be endowed with similar qualities.
Further, and this Mr. Matthews and the college professor’s wife, with
objecting parents, should mark well, the average, normal boy has a deep
conviction that parents, preachers and teachers are narrow-minded old
fogies, either eternally shamming or showing off, utterly destitute of
originality, and full of silly prejudice. The boys are not far wrong.
Therefore, the obnoxious officiousness--but what’s the use.
As to dare devil books, can any normal, sensible man, not a _Stiggins_,
a _Pecksniff_, or a _Uriah Heep_, put his finger on any book of that
class, that he read when a lively boy, and say, “If I had not read
this, I would have been a better, wealthier, healthier man; I would
today have been saner, holier, wiser?” Can any reading man who has
lived with those gallant dare-devil creations that he learned to
love and admire before he knew _Becky Sharp_ or _Hester Prynne_, or
_Corporal Trim_, say that he would willingly obliterate the memory of
any one of them? On the other hand, mentally reviewing an imaginary
parade of boyhood heroes, does not one’s heart beat quicker, does there
not come a thrill of joy as the golden days before disillusionment are
recalled?
Picture the procession! It will do you good. No Barnum and Bailey
amalgamation of circuses can match, nor civic pageant pale it. The
great iron gates of the boys’ Valhalla fly open with a clang, and the
lank-jawed, pestiferous prohibitionist flees before the noble throng.
All brave in their Lincoln green, _Robin Hood_ and his merry men lead
the way. You see _Friar Tuck_ and _Little John_, _Will Scarlett_, and
_Alan-a-Dale_. _Jack Shephard_ follows, keen eyed and lithe, a merry
rogue laughing at shackles and handcuffs, to whom Houdini is but a
pale ghost. _Dick Turpin_ too is there astride of his bonny _Black
Bess_, and _Claude Duval_ the gallant, with _Cartouche_, and _Monte
Cristo_ mysterically visible in his sack. Captain Kidd with blood
stained bandage marches with Jesse James and the Younger brothers,
and _Phileas Fogg_ the imperturbable, unsmiling and resolute, touches
elbows with John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain. _Quasimodo_ comes, and
George the runner and Beach the oarsman, _Long John Silver_ and old
man _Pew_, _Gagool_ and _Natty Bumpo_, _Gordon Pym_ and the Man in the
Iron Mask, _Allen Quatermain_ and Gaborieu’s detectives. Covered with
yellow dust of New Mexico, glittering with silver and gold, ride the
immortal Scalp Hunters and the plainsmen of Captain Mayne Reid, while
the _Iron Pirate_ and _Jack Harkaway_ go arm in arm. Sailors, fire
fighters, cowboys, whalers, smugglers thicker throng. Spears, banners,
bayonets, lassoes, boledores, battle axes and marlinspikes bristle
above massed heads. Wild, strange oaths fill the air. Steel clashes on
steel. Then comes a crowd of heroes so compact that with difficulty you
pick out one here and there--trim _Midshipman Easy, Harry Lorrequer_,
_Peter Simple_, _Handy Andy_, _Percival Keene_, _Baron Munchausen_,
_Ned Kelley_ the iron clad Australian bush ranger, _Tracy_ the outlaw,
_Valentine Vox_, Peace the burglar, _Athos_, _Porthos_, _Aramis_,
the _Wandering Jew_. Not a woman, not a seducer, not a pestilential
prohibitionist in all that glorious, golden, glittering galaxy. Not
a saint, a statesman or an uplifter there. Not one could you find to
be accused of injustice, of prejudice, of narrow mindedness. Not one
but would leap to quarter-staff, to bow, to mace, to dirk, to pistol
or musket in defense of liberty and freedom. Not a solitary religious
character would you find, except it be Sampson, admitted by reason of
his house-wrecking activities.
By all the gods, if this little book shall result in but one rattling
good short story, one real good tale of adventure, just one good
story for boys that are boys, and not tight fisted men before their
time, the writing of it shall have been well worth the while and
Mr. Haldeman-Julius will have conferred a benefit on his generation
by publishing this. So go to it if you can. Forget “moral lessons,”
“improvement of the juvenile mind” and all that nonsense and give the
best that is in you.