The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-08-31
THE DANGERS OF DISC UR-
SIZE REA DING.

cording to the letter, but be taken with
certain liberality. And yet the aphor-
ism Is true even without any such abate-
ment; as is signally evinced by the ex-
ample of John Bunyan, who had nothing
with him but the Bible in Bedford Jail,
and had little knowledge of any other
book during his whole lifetime Louis
Kossuth is said to have had no English
volumes with him in his Imprisonment
except the Authorised Version of the
Scriptures and Shakespeare. To this
limitation of his intellectual resources has
been attributed his thorough mastery of
the English language which he after
wards used with such effect as the vehicle
of his diversified and persuasive elo-
quence. The argument of Buffers Anal
ogy appears to have been suggested by
one of the thoughts of Pascal The
dazzling career of Alexander of Mace
don was prompted and stimulated by the
account of Achilles in the Iliad We
know, however, that Alexander did not
confne his early reading to the pages of
Homer, and that Bishop Butler perused
other writings besides those of Blaise
Pascal. And it is by no means our in
tention to advocate narrow as opposed
to broad culture. There are undoubt-
ed advantages in the extension of the
means of information in our day, and it
is clearly best that those advantages
should be enjoyed by large number
and even by an increasingly large num-
Der. There is an amplitude of horizon
given to the minds view, and positive
and varied enrichment of the mind itself,
to say nothing of the actual augmenta-
ton OF knowledge, produced by wide
reading as by discursive foreign travel.
Yet as in the case of discursive foreign
travel, so in the case of wide reading, the
advantages are not unattended by cor
responding drawbacks. Bacon says that
reading makes the full man. 1t is not
by any means so clear that the most CO.
pious reading makes the fullest man. 1t
is not the man who makes the grand tour
that knows the most about Europe. 1t
is rather the man who has employed the
same amount of time in studying the
chief places. What is now referred to,
though, is not so much to what in the
English universities is known as "hard
reading" as to what in contrast may be
styled easy reading, but might better be
described as spontaneous reading; read
ing that is to say which is pursued not as
task, or to accomplish some specific OBJ
ject, but from the love of it and to satisfy
a mental hunger. Education, in the
technical sense in which the term is ap-
piled to our scholastic processes (the edu-
cation that consists so largely in set
tasks), should, as has been urged, be some
what comprehensive, as well as be SYM
metrical. The question now under dis
cussion is, What should be the latitude
permitted in the way of free excursions
of more private nature into the ever
widening realms of popular literature ?
Even for purposes of sheer information,
as was just now commended, an extremely
discursive method may not always be the
most effective. There is danger of
superficial impression. There is danger
too of mental confusion, arising from the
number and contiguity of objects which
are for the most part of the most hetero-
geneous character. If the power of the
mind is not only difused but strained,
the effect is sometimes to blunt it's sensi-
bility if not to paralyse its operation.
DR.. Kippis was laughingly reported to
have SO much in his head that his brains
could not move. The effect Of discursive
reading on the mind itself is hard to de-
termine in advance Of any given expert
ment. Peoples minds differ quite as
much as peoples faces Moore argues
that untrammelled liberty to "browse"
Gas Charles Lamb said he did in a good
library, is sine qua non in the case of
great imaginative geniuses. He admits
that this is not the course to be recon-
mended in all other cases. Bacon's fine
saying, indeed, should not be forgotten.