In order to make sense of written language, we cannot just learn a mental trick of association but must also acquire much information about the world we live in. This first category of reading for comprehension is endlessly debated by all parties, including literary scholars and critics. I lifted the title of this panel from a remarkable essay on how to keep notes on one's reading and how to set up and constantly revise a system of files both in order to give direction to one's professional career and in order to constitute one's character as a person. We all pick up procedures for keeping notes and files as we go along. But despite the number of methodology courses in graduate programs in literature, such basics are rarely discussed.
Mills deserves much credit for raising a neglected subject essential for all writers.
Intellectual craftsmanship will become even more challenging in the era of electronics and computers. Another great scholar a century earlier saw fit to speak of these basics near the end of his autobiography. I may mention that I keep from thirty to forty large portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or memorandum. I have a huge drawer full. Before beginning on any subject I look to all the short indexes and make a general and classified index, and by taking the one or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during my life ready for use.