The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1872-04-02
For tho REGISTER.
A Working .man's working-library.

The man who lives by his brains al
ways has more books than he can read
and fewer than he needs to use His
working-library may consist of few books,
but they need to be well-choscn. He
must carry in his head not his knowledge,
but the ability to find it and to use it.
First among his books, be he believer
or iufidel, is the Bible. He must also
have Newman's Concordance, now not
known by his name. The form sold by
the American Tract Society under he
name Of Cruden Condensed, at S1.50.
will answer as well as the more costly.
Brown or Butterworth will not answer.
1t is surprising to me how little use |
now make of commentaries, compared
with what did in former years.
The next book, of course, is Websters
Unabridged.
It Is little remarkable that much
more than half the remainder is issued
by single publisher; and the destruction
Of these plates, copy and editions-would
make a wider gap than the loss of per-
haps of all the works of any two other
publishers. These works are from j. b.
Lippincott q Co., Philadelphia.
First of these is Wood & Baches Dis
pensatory, found in every drugstore. 1t
tells all about all the medicines used by
educated physicians-some homeopathic
ones excepted-all their names, the mode
of their preparation, their doses, and eff.
fects. Every ten years the plates are
melted up and the whole printed anew.
(Dunglison's Medical Lexicon, from the
same publishers l manage to do without. J
Second is Chambers Encyclopedia. 1t
is the only illustrated cycopedia now sold.
1t is better for us that it is written in
Europe. 1t tells US most of what we
know least. However well an encyclo-
pedia may answer for biography and
belles-lettres, without illustrations, but
when it comes to machinery, anatomy,
optics or the like, an unilustrated article
is IN imposition.
Third, Chambers Atlas has the advan-
tage that it can be lifted by the thumb
and finger but it needs our best school
atlas to supplement it, for it is very de-
fective as to the United States. Else
where it answers most of the purposes of
the folio nuisances but, like them, it
ought to be lettered better.
Fourth, The Gazetteer, virtually the
only one we have. The new edition, with
the census of 1870, probably
contains oyer 100000 places. 1t
gives very full accounts Of continents,
nations, provinces, states and large cities.
Middlebury gets thirteen lines. For this
and the next work the English world owes
debt Of gratitude to DR.. Joseph Thom-
as. a specimen of whose work is seen in
the "Modern Geographical and Biograph-
ical Names" in Webster's Dictionary.
Probably no other man ever investigated
the pronunciation of names as he has.
One might wish he had chosen other Ro-
man letters to represent Arabic and
Oriental names, but his fidelity and ac-
curacy are in striking contrast with the
Inconsistency that wrote "Kharport," and
"Harpoot" on three consecutive maps, if
needed we have not also Harpout from
the same authority.
The fifth and last, and newest of these
gigantic undertakings of Lipincott is the
Biographical Dictionary. Its pages are
smaller than those of Webster's largest
Dictionary but more numerous. 2345,
against 1910 in the Dictionary. Ii con.
tains the living, the dead, and those who
never lived, from Saturn and Rhea, to
Grant and Colfax. To Washington it
gives nearly four pages; to Solomon
Foote, six lines to William Slade five.
Their native place Cornwall, has three
lines in the Gazetteer. OF the Smiths,
so spelled, there are but seventy-three
DR.. Thomas is the author of this too, and
there is the same unrivalled accuracy Of
pronunciation, and in names foreign to
the Roman Alphabet in spelling.
| have been so long over these, that |
must reduce the rest to mere catalogue
For Mathematics | use Robiusons Sc.
ries; but as it is old, | take Lockyer't
Astronomy, Dana's Mineralogy and Ge.
ogy and Gray's Botanies are as nearly
perfect as anything | expect to see. Lin
sley's Vegetable Kingdom, De Candollil
Prodromus and Endlicher's Genera carry
the botanical department farther than any
other. Towers latest Chemistry, Porter,
Human Intellect, Lords Natural anc
Revealed Theology, Crosby's Greek Sc
res Madvigs Latin Grammar, Tenny
Zoology and Nicholsons, McUlintock anc
Strong's Biblical Cyclopoedia, Chamber
Cyclopedia of English Literature anC
Arvin's, Anecdotes of Literature anc
Fine Arts, sum up the rest, except a col
lection Of Dictionaries of various Ian
guages, not including, lam sorry to say
Dansk, Swedish, low Dutch. Portuguese
and Arabic. All of which when | attain
| expect to be happy I.r.n.
SLANDER.-Yes, you pass it along
whether you believe it or not; and tha
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