The love of books-the love of reading-is the most requisite, the most efficient instrument of self-education. Where this is not found in young or in old, all intellectual life soon dies out-rather it may be said never to have been quickened. -TULLOCH. Men must be inquisitive before they will read. -BUCKLE. If any one would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens and fine dinners and wines and coaches and beautiful clothes and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should not read books, I would not be a king. -MACAULAY. Reading makes a full man; talking a ready man: the happy medium is reached when a man reads enough to give value to what he has to say. Studies serve for delight, for ornament and for ability: their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. Read to weigh and consider: some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. -BACON. It is much better to master one subject, one author, than to have a vague smattering idea of half a dozen. The principle I would enforce-and I act upon it myself-is Multum non Multa ("Read much, not many things "). Direct your strength to the subjects which come home to you most. But while you learn your little book thoroughly, you must beware of reading it by the method of mere cram. Some things no doubt there are that must be appropriated by the process of cram; but these are not the best things, and they contain no culture. Cram is a mere mechanical operation of which a reasoning animal should be ashamed. But cramming, however, often practised, is seldom necessary; it is resorted to by those specially, who cannot, or who will not learn to think. I advise you on the contrary, whenever possible, to think before you read, or at least while you are reading. -PROF. BLACKIE. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment. -LOCKE. Some read to think-these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority. -COLTON. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. -BACON. Many people are great readers. Now, reading does not build the mind; thought alone builds it. Reading is only valuable as it furnishes materials for thought. A man may read much, but his mental growth will be in proportion to the amount of thought that he expends in his reading. The value to him of the thought which he reads depends on the use he makes of it. Unless he takes up the thought, and works on it himself, its value to him will be small and passing. "Reading makes a full man," said Lord Bacon, and it is with the mind as with the body. Eating fills the stomach, but as the meal is useless to the body unless it is digested and assimilated, so also the mind may be filled by reading, but unless there is thought there is no assimilation of what is read, and the mind does not grow thereby-nay, it is likely to suffer from over-loading, and to weaken rather than strengthen under a burden of unassimilated ideas. We should read less, and think more, if we would have our minds grow, and our intelligence develope. If we are in earnest in the culture of our minds, we should daily spend an hour in the study of some serious and weighty book, and, reading for five minutes, we should think for ten, and so on through the hour. -ANNIE BESANT. Who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not Uncertain and unsettled still remains Deep versed in books, but shallow in himself. -MILTON. Learn to read slow: all other graces Will follow in their proper places. -WALKER. It is far better for the student to read too slowly than too fast, and for this purpose it is well to mark a book with many more points or pauses than are necessary. -FLEMING. In reading authors when you find Be not contented with the sight, But take them down in black and white; Such a respect is wisely shown, As makes another's sense one's own. -BYRON. Dr. Johnson, who is said to have had an uncommonly good memory, tells us, that when he was a boy, he used, after he had acquired any fresh knowledge from his books, to run and tell it to an old woman of whom he was very fond. This exercise was so agreeable to him that it imprinted what he read upon his memory." * It is not well to persist in reading when overcome with sleep. It is well in reading to interrupt the strain From Essays on Practical Education by Maria and R. L. Edgeworth. of continuous gaze upon the page, and rest the eyes by looking into the distance occasionally, even if only for a few seconds.* Read as little as possible by artificial light, nor before or after sun-down, nor with the light immediately in front, but let it fall at an angle on the page, over the left shoulder.† -DR. W. W. HALL. Reading aloud is of the first importance in giving strength to the organs of respiration.‡ -COMBE. Let me call upon all parents to be critical of what their children read. This is a grave matter, for on it depends the bent of the young nature.|| -JANE H. CLAPPERTON. To learn to read is the business of half a life. -MACAULAY. Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them. -LORD CHESTERFIELD. Black. From Ward and Lock's Long Life Series, edited by George From How to Live Long. From Elements of Physiology. From Scientific Meliorism. |
