The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-03-29
A GOOD LIBRARY.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS FoR TNT
MAN WHO READS.

Tho First Law In Selecting Books--A
Library should Grow with the Mind.
Keep Your school Beoks--IIght Ilitera.
ture.
Thr first law in selecting books is, am
sure. 70 buy along the limo OF your special
work I do not say in the line, for that il
precisely what is not wanted What We want
is not to be told what we can SIC or find out
for ourselves, but what viii enable us 20 see
more broadly than our separate experience
would lead us 10 Sc. Books. while not lead.
ing US away from sure and special lines al
life work, should keep us from narrowing
ourselves into grooves.
The second law is 20 buy books, in the main,
as we need therl A library should grow
with the mind These two rules can be illus
trated together We viii suppose a ruanS
special line is anthropology. Plainly he
must also be a good student Of history. lie
must also be well acquainted with recent
biological researches-which involve paleon.
tology aud zoology, at least as far as results
of investigation go He viii not have gone
far before evca .tion, as a scientific problem,
must be handled Dealing fairly with this,
he finds himself involved in ancient religious
theories and comparative theology. / need
nos carry the process farther but ! say hts
this line, and CT his books should DO bought
as needed
Tho possession of large number OF books
is not the possession OF n library. Books,
however inherently valuable under certain
circumstances, under other circumstances be-
come lumber. It is Ikea thousand acre farm,
of which only ten acres are worked, while
the owner lives in a bit of howell. IL il iTn-
possible 20 express too strongly the close re
lation that mind growth should bear to
library growth 1t should be like the growth
of bone 10 a mans flesh.
No one should sell or give away his books
that have been used and seem no longer need
full Especially should old school books and
college books be sacredly kept. To no other
books do we sustain 50 intimate personal no
!ationship We shall surely miss the very
copy of Horace and of DE AmicitiR that we
grew familiar with, and some day will desire
TO turn TO a passage in "Ars Poetica,n or
''Via Sacra," and it viii not be quite the
same as when we read it in sophomore yeGR
on the log in the glen with Classmate Stevens
I give every boy and girl warning not 10 part
with their text books in literature and
classics. Even my old Webster's spelling,
book would now be treasure TO me. Arb
such books part OF a hbraryl Most truly,
yes They are the very essential part of u
iibrary-the tools we have used as we came
along-but tools that never wear out.
Perhaps a careful distinction should be
made between the books in our study and
those in the library proper; for each man
shonld have his library, and each family
should have its library. The latter should be
| built on less restricted plan; yet certainly
| under careful rules a home library should,
above all, have an atmosphere of refinement
| and good society. 1t should not admit low
| bred book any more than our drawing rooms
| should admit tho familiarity OF low bred
people. An hour spent in it should produce
| the refreshment that comes from q social
hour with witty and good friends.
A really good home library must include
| rescripts; it is sometimes pity-ofteneT not
| There are not 100 good authors In general lit
srature that cannot be wisely compressed.
T. viii not pay to read them through. These
tHalf Hours with the best authors are nee
essary and valuable But when it comes TO
history am not so sure. And as for Beau
ties of Ruskin, (" beauties of Goethe" etc.
etc, let us burn them. If 1 cannot go into a
rose garden for myself, 1 viii thank you for
a bunch Of flowers; but for you 20 run ahead
of me with your nose and demand that
shall smell over again your bouquet, 1 am ia
clined TO select for myself.
A good library grows as our SOULS grow; II
widens out its sympathies and gets a larger
outlook But at the same time sloughing
goes on. We only grow well as we can die
well. Some people have great difficulty in
diving TO anything; they equally fail to grow
that is to enlarge. Such are your religious
birots l hate TO see a man who reads an
| author by the doSe-one dose day; two
doses a day-the way my grandmother tool
her Bible and as many take it yet, but in
smaller pellets. have friend who carries
Shakespeare in his pocket, and bolts por-
ton each day. He resembles for oil the world
a pump that is clOgged up from having it
chain run too deep. Shakespeare has always
been too deep for the fellow, and he r. onl!
pumping sand and gravel Another took u
carving a mathematical treatise. he is him
self an equal angled triangle inscribed in {
circle we must be able to change intellec
tually, outgrow and grow away from OLD
tastes We all have our chrome period
some stop there.
The bulk Of novels is of no more value thar
blank paper Children who have little rea
world as yet need great deal of the possible
and ideal. Novels, contrary 70 common
opinion, are peculiarly the books for thu
young-true novels Curiously, the worlds
earliest literature was mostly imaginative
w have poems and tales 1000 years old
while logic did not find utterance till about
| $500 years ago. Voyages, travels, natura
history gradually come TO serve in the I,lac'
Of novels. the actunl in the place of the pos
eible Lowell urges the use Of such old vol
rroes Of travel as were written by voyager
ssvhen the world was fresh and unhack
neved.n That last word of Lowelrs tells tn
story very fully. A well visited place il
England was one that hackney coaches RAJ
TO aid 'front.' was Hackneyed- Today th
whole world is Hackneyed-''E- 2. p" 4
Globe-Democrat-