I take this paragraph from an editorial in this morning’s World:
THE MORALS OF BOY READERS.
“Being a Boy” has its disadvantages in Worcester, Mass., where the directors of the Public Library have barred the books of Horatio Alger, jr., from their shelves as “untruthful” and “too sensational” for young readers. No more shall the Ragged Dicks and Tattered Toms be permitted to contaminate the innocence of budding minds. Why indeed should boys seek the companionship of those “undesirables,” along with that of the Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns, the Gavroches and other gamins of juvenile fiction, when they may associate with Little Lord Fauntleroy and Rollo?
About once every year some pious public library banishes Huck Finn from its children’s department, andⒶtextual note on the same plea always—that Huck, the neglected and untaught son of a town drunkard, is given to lying, when in difficulty and hard pressed, and is therefore a bad example for young people, and a damager of their morals.
Two or three years ago I was near-byⒶtextual note when one of these banishments was decreed and advertised, and I went over and asked the librarian about itⒺexplanatory note, and he said yes, Huck was banished for lying. I asked,
“Is there nothing else against him?”Ⓐtextual note
“No, I think not.”
“Do you banish all books that are likely to defile young morals, or do you stop with Huck?”
“We do not discriminate; we banish all that are hurtful to young morals.”
I picked up a book, and said—
“I see several copies of this book lying around. Are the young forbidden to read it?”
“The Bible? Of course not.”
“Why not?”
“That is a strange question to ask.”
“Very well, then I withdraw it. Are you acquainted with the passages in Huck which are held to be objectionable?”
He said he was; and at my request he took pen and paper and proceeded to write them down for me. Meantime I stepped to a desk and wrote down some extracts from the Bible. I showed them to him and said I would take it as a favor if he would attach his extracts to mine and post them on the wall, so that the people could examine them and see which of the two sets they would prefer to have their young boys and girls read.
He replied coldly that he was willing to post the extracts which he had made, but not those which I had made.
“Why?”
He replied—still coldly—that he did not wish to discuss the matter. I asked if he had some boys and girls in his family, and he said he had. I asked—
[begin page 98] “Do you ever read to them these extracts which I have made?”
“Of course not!”
“You don’t need to. They read them to themselves, clandestinely. All Protestant children of both sexes do it, and have been doing it for severalⒶtextual note centuries. You did it yourself when you were a boy. Isn’t it so?”
He hesitated, then said no. I said—
“You have lied, and you know it. I think you have been reading Huck Finn yourself, and damaging your morals.”
Once I was a hero. I can never forget it. It was forty years ago, when I was a bashful young bachelor of thirty-two. I lectured in the village of Hudson, New York, and was the guest of the village parson, there being no hotel in the place. In the morning I was summoned to the parlor for family worship. It began with a chapter from the Old Testament. SeatedⒶtextual note elbow to elbow around the walls were the aged clergyman’s family of young folks, along with twenty-one maidens and youths from neighboring homes. I was pleasantly wedged between two young girls—sweet and modest and diffident lassies. The preacher read the first verse; a youth at his left read the second; a girl at the youth’s left read the third—and so on down, toward me. I ran my finger down to my verse, purposing to familiarize myself with it, soⒶtextual note that I could read it acceptably when my turn shouldⒶtextual note come. I got a shock! It was one of those verses which wouldⒶtextual note make a graven image blush. I did not believe I could read it aloud inⒶtextual note such a company, and I resolved that I would not try. Then I noticed that the poor girl at my left had put her finger on that same verse and was showing signs of distress. Was it her verse? Had I miscounted? I counted again, and found it really was her verse, and not mine. By this time myⒶtextual note turn was come. I saw my chance to be a hero, and I rose to the occasion: I braced up and read my verse and hers tooⒺexplanatory note! I was proud of myself, for it was as fine and grand as saving her from drowning.
title Dictated August 10, 1907] This “dictation” is in fact based on a manuscript.
Two or three years ago . . . I went over and asked the librarian about it] This must refer to the restrictions placed on Huckleberry Finn by the Brooklyn Public Library in 1905 (see AutoMT2 , 27–33 and notes on 473–76). No record of an actual visit to the library has been found.
Once I was a hero . . . I braced up and read my verse and hers too] Clemens lectured in Hudson, Massachusetts (not “Hudson, New York”), on 21 December 1869. The incident he describes must have happened at the home of his sponsor there, the Reverend H. G. Gay. From an 1879 notebook entry it appears that the offending biblical verse was 2 Kings 18:27: “Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?” ( N&J2 , 302–3; 21 Dec 1869 to OLL, L3 , 434–35 n. 3).
Source documents.
MS Manuscript, leaves numbered [1]–6.World Clipping from the New York World, 10 August 1907, unknown page, attached to MS: ‘THE MORALS . . . and Rollo?’ (97.2–10).
This is a manuscript, written on buff-colored laid paper measuring 5 11/16 by 8¾ inches. There is no sign this was ever typed up by Hobby; typescript versions in the Mark Twain Papers date from after SLC’s death. However, its dateline claiming to have been “Dictated” suggests the intention to use it in the Autobiography. The last paragraph (‘Once I was . . . drowning.’) was published in L3, 435 n. 3. The bulk of the remainder was published in SLC 2010b.