The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1874-08-28


shall hear it. But on no other terms.
MOI IF you will not rise to us, we can
not stoop to you.
Perhaps of equal Importance with
knowing what to read is knowing how to
read. I have recommended to you the
reading of the standard authors. we
will all soon be seized with an ambition
to be able TO talk about
Shakespeare and Shelley, Keats CARLYLE
Tennyson's rythm and Thackelay's style;
Poems and poets with ''vsion divine
And all who eer served the celestial nine
Number of works and the title of each;
But not truth does this pedant reach
Make Millions Paradise Lost your
standard reading for ten years, study
one play of Shakespear, one fiction OF
Scott or one poem Of any standard poet,
and you will be bet er versed in pure Ian
guage and refined style, you will have
more food for thought, more strength
and elevation of mind, more true mental
culture and spiritudal Development, than
if in the same time you had raced
through the whole list of standard
works. An author, already quoted from,
declares that ''no book is worth any
thing which is not worth much nor is
it serviceable until it has been read and
re-read, and loved and loved again.
ssGet into the habit of looking intense
" at words, and assuring yourself OF
their meaning, syllable by syllable
nay, letter by letter. Did you ever
think what it is to be literary man ac-
cording to the strict derivation OF the
term? A literary man is one versed in
literature, and, without going through
with the details of the Latin derivation,
| Cicero in accordance with the derivation
gives a definition OF literature, which is
translated: Literature consists of the
characters Of the letters, and of that Il.
e. the wax on which those characters
are impressed.' Even SO. These charac-
tiers which we call letters, are the spi-
taphs engraved on imperishable monu
| nlents and saying: Sacred to the mem
DRY Of truths, sent from the eternal
thought of God, conceived by the mind
of man. and which have lived, grown
and se.ved, but now are here buried,
| awaiting resurrection at your hands,
and for your glory. Truly, then, does
Ruskin say: ''You might read all the
books in the British Museum Gf you
could live long enough and remain an
utterly '.illiterate,' uneducated person;
while if you read ten pages Of good
book, letter by letter, that is to say, with
real accuracy-you are forever more IN
some measure an educated person. ,"
How vastly important # is then that we
use utmost nicely in our choice OF books,
to get the best; since if we read this we
| cannot read that, and what we lose to-
| day in this careful accurate reading Of
Door book, We cannot gain tomorrow.
But right here unfortunately let us
who are young, take a word OF caution
as to the time of reading. 4 thorough
scholarship is necessary to taste for,
and as profitable pursuit OF this higher
reading. For instance, take seven years
of ones life between childhood and man
| hood. IF one spends the first five years
in rigorous scholarly discipline, and the
last two years in such reading as he
has taste and capacity for, he Will have
acquired ten-fold more literary culture
than If the whole Of the seven years had
been spent in persistent reading. In
earlier years let the common school aca-
demical and professional studies be the
main pursuit. And, lastly, and com
pretending all what use ought we to
make of this higher reading? Shall it be
that we may make mere display Of
pedantry; or that we may speak in sweet
stolen phrases Of nature, friendship and
DUTY. while we never feel a throb of ex-
altation at beholding the magnificent
displays OF Natures beauty and power,
while we never felt the warm blood
bound along our veins as we meet q
friend, while we never say 81 Will when
duty bids?
'Show me the man
Who, leaving God and Nature and himself,
Sits at the feet OF sters, stufs his bra
with maxims, notions, rules and usages
/ And yields his fancy up to leadng-strings
And shall see a man who never did
A deed worth doing"
So says our Holland.
| Or shall it be for cur own selfish en-
! ioyment, that we may withdraw from
the busy, noisy arena Of the world and
eutomb ourselves in the Gin, quiet
cioisters of past ages, where our pure
thoughts and delicate sensibilities may
not be Jared or soled by the CHATTER
and passions of active life? No Lille
is real; Life is earnest" It's aim and
highest duty is action, right action.
whether Of hand, of head or OF heart