The Republican., 1891-09-18
THE USE OF BOOKS,
Get Only Those Suited to Your Needs ana
Read to Know Them.

such, are meant to be owned as well as
read. There is a subtle influence in
their very presence upon those who
dwell among them that elevates, edu-
Gates and refines. AS Henry Ward
Beecher said, "a home without books
is like a room without windows. No
man has right to bring up his chill
dren without surrounding them with
books. 1t is a mans duty to
have books" And Rusllin exclaims,
''To be without books of your own is
the abyss of penury: don't endure it,"
A host of great men might be quoted
whose testimony is unanimous as to
the beneficial influence of good books in
every home.
But not only is it necessary to have
books; they must also be used in order
that they may fulfill their whole pur-
pose.
Only as their presence incites and
leads to their use is it beneficial For
while it is true, as Emerson has so well
said, that ''in a library we are sur
rounded by many hundreds of dear
friends" they ARE imprisoned by an
enchanter in these paper and leathern
boXes;" and though they know us, and
have been waiting two, ten or twenty
centuries for us-some of them-and are
eager to give us sign and unbosom
themselves, it is the law of their linn bo
that they must not speak until spoken
to-" An unused or improperly used
library of thousand volumes, is worth
less to its possessor than one of twenty
books, or less, wisely and diligently
made to do its work. Books were never
meant to be mummies, however gor-
geously embalmed, but living, acting,
helpful friends and companions. A few
of the latter are worth a host of the
former.
How, then are books to be used in
order to do us most good? This surely
is legitimate and necessary question
and not at all opposed to the sentiment
of Mrs. Browning, which every true
book-lover must endorse, that
I'VE get no good
BY being ungenerous even to IA book,
And calculating profts-so much help
Dy 81 HuCu reaulnB.
For precisely herein lies the cause of so
much misuse of libraries. Young per-
sons especially are apt to start out with
the ''uhgenerous" idea that the more
pages they read the more they will
know. We have actually known per-
sons who commenced at IA of an en-
cyclopBdia. or, what was worse still, at
the title-page of the first of six-volume
edition of Byron's works, and read
straight on, page for page; so many
pages per day, until the end. Is it nee
essary to point out that this was all
wasted time?
Books are not to be used as spiritual
food, not as intellectual stutfing. AS
food they are to be enjoyed, digested,
assimilated. Partaking of it when not
hungry sicllens; taking too much at a
time causes dyspepsia. In other words,
never read simply for the sake of read
ing. 1t will do no good. Have some
definite purpose. Take up and interest
yourself in some special subject-then
read all you can get that has any refer
ence to that. No more will you COM
plain of the "dryness" of what you
read. You will have an appetite. You
will be interested. You will be careful
to understa Al what is written and will
naturally bring it into such relations
with the general subject as to make it
''amenable to the laws of mental asso-
citation" and therefore will be able to
recall it when and where needed. We
can seldom remember what we read
with the mere purpose of remembering.
Read, then, to know, not to remcmb Der.
Make the thoughts, truths, facts of the
book your own. Assimilate; don't store
and stuff
Even this method, however, will not
be thoroughly satisfactory to the most;
first, because there are few who have
facilities strong enough and under suffi-
cient control to make and keep the
knowledge thus gained always availa-
BILE; and secondly, because there are so
many subjects demanding our attention
and interest that life is too short by
thousands of years to read even a part
of what is written on them. This fact
often strikes one with discouragiug and
depressing force. Yet it ought not to
cause us worriment. 1t is in the very
nature of being that we can not retain
in the mind more than very limited
number of facts. That is just what a
library is for-to supplement this limi-
tation. Why try to put the library into
your head, which is impossible, when
it will serve you just as well on your
shelves. which is practicable, and which
it will do if you take less trouble to re-
member the facts that are in your books
and more that the facts are in them?
Don't try to make any encyclopedia of
your memory; very few succeed in doing
that, and when they have succeeded are
good for little else. Be content if you
can make it an index, so full and true
as to make your library the encyclope-
dia. Turning to this inner index, you
remember that such and such subject
is treated in this volume, referred to in
that one, treated philosophically in a
third, scientifically in fourth, and so
on. You can at once lay your hand on
these volumes, even turn in an instant
to the chapter and page you want.
Such an indeX-memory is as much as
the average man can expect to have
Publishers Weekly.
How He Ioat His Clothas