# Making the Most of One's Mind/Chapter 7

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TEXT-BOOKS AND BOOKS OF REFERENCE
ΟNE of my dictionaries tells me that a text-book is "a book containing the leading principles of a science." Another goes into more detail and explains that a text-book is "a volume, as of some classical author, on which a teacher lectures or comments; hence any manual of instruction; a school book." You will note that we have here two fundamentally different ideas of what a text-book is, and the difference arises from the relation assumed between the book and the teacher. The first definition does not mention the teacher at all; the second puts him in the forefront.
The connexion between the teacher and the text-book is an ancient one, and carries us back to very early times when there were few books indeed. There were, in fact, more teachers than books, and the business of the teachers was to acquire as much knowledge as they could from books and from inter-course with men, and then place this knowledge at ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/189 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/190 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/191 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/192 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/193 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/194 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/195 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/196 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/197 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/198 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/199 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/200 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/201 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/202 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/203 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/204 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/205 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/206 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/207 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/208 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/209 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/210 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/211 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/212 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/213 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/214 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/215 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/216 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/217 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/218 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/219 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/220 ​Page:Making the most of one's mind (IA makingmostofones00adam).pdf/221 ​if you have consulted only one book you have a strong tendency merely to reproduce, whereas when you have consulted many authorities, you must at least collate.
If you have in view a more ambitious essay, you will naturally have to go farther afield. You will, of course, consult the bibliography at the end of the Shakespeare article, and see first which of the books referred to bear upon your subject, and then which of these suitable books are available at whatever library is open to you. Naturally you will consult the "subject catalogue" at your library, under various heads that you think likely to offer help: Shakespeare, History, Literature. You may chance upon a book with the very title of your essay. If you do hit upon a volume on Shakespeare's England, you will find it almost as great a hindrance as it is a help. While it supplies you with a great deal of matter, it limits you, because it treats that matter in a certain way, and you will find it very difficult to avoid adopting the same line of treatment. Many writers when dealing with a given subject of a literary kind, carefully avoid reading anything that is written definitely under the same title. They want to be able to deal with the matter freely. You must remember that it is a restraint even to have to consider how another person has dealt with the same matter.