Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-05-17

phry Wards story, THE Marriage of
William Ashe" opens the June number
OF Harper's Magazine. Two illustra-
lions by Albert Sterner present three
of the new characters. A picture of a
girl, Lady Kitty Bristol, is peculiarly
Interesting and quite original, both in
color and treatment. William Ashe,
son of Lord and Lady Tranmore, and
just being returned to Parliament the
second time, appears at once in the
first chapter. which has the same re-
strained vivacity that caught the read
er's attention so promptly in the OPEN
ing of Lady Roses Daughter"
Kansas City Journal: Mr.. Hamilton
w. Mabie laments in recent magazine
article because there are in this coun-
try so many people who read and COM
paratively so few who are cultivated
1t has long been the conventional
teaching of pedagogues and writer's
that books are the only and the sure
road to culture. But many are finding,
as Mr.. Mabie has found. that "a man
may know great deal about literature
without knowing literature" that one
might, if he had time, read every book
in the British museum, and come out Il
pedantic, uncultivated, impractical
bore.
Il has also long been the accepted
doctrine that reading eXerts a powerful
influence on character. Addison had
so little doubt on this head that ne
wrote in the Taller: Reading is to
the mind what eXertiOn is to the body.
BY the one the health is preserved,
strengthened ana invigorated; by the
other, virtue (Which is the health Of
the minD is kept alive, cherished and
confirmed" Intelligent observers are
grown very skeptical on this point, toe.
Almost everybody in this country
reads. Many read n great deal. Nc
doubt also our moral level is higher
than that of any other people. But it
is nowhere near as high as is the aver
age of intelligence among us. We are
having daily forced upon our attention
the fact that a man may be great
reader and pay very little regard to the
rights of his fellows; that newspapers
and pamphlets may make him an an
archiSt as we'll as a patriot; that he
may steal a purse with the luscious
poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox in his
pocket. We have found that know
ledge and integrity do not always go
together, and that, as somebody has
forcibly said: knowledge without in
tegrity is dangerous and dreadful
Mems mistake has been, not in COM
mending and adopting the reading ha-
bit, but in too indiscriminatingly COM
M nd cd ~
be. no culture without knowledge; but
then, knowledge is not culture. Gen
uine culture as MIR. Mabie says, lis Il
very real, human and simple quality
as far Sremoved as possible from intel
lactual prctentiousness and display,
from Il vast accumulation of facts in
he memory, from familiarity with
names and dates" And this genuine
culture is not to be got by discursive,
ldcsultory reading, nor even by constant,
wide reading. Probably it is not to be
got by reading at all in the common
meaning of that word. 1t is product
of study-Of the study especially of
literature, perhaps, but also of men, and
of things. Nor will every newspaper
or magazine or book that one may pick
up minister to culture. 1t is not how
much a man reads SO much as it is
what he reads and the way he reads it,
that counts in strengthening his mind,
widening his outlook and developing
his Sympathies with an understanding
Of humanity. If Il man has but little time
for reading. ana yet would attain cul-
turc through literature, he must put the
most of his reading hours up.u the
great. epoch making books-upun Ilo-
nCr and Aristotle, Cicero and Dante,
Molierc. B@sSuct ana GuiZot, Kant,
Momn-"u ana Goethe. Shakespeare
and BACON wilton AMI Addison, Ma
caulay. t'a>hi;.:gtnn irving, Wards
worth, t;il.hnu, Mil. Spencer ana Ten
nySon. .irkcnS. ThackUray, Hawthorne
and their liz" or he will never attain
his end or know what the real plea =
SurcS of iradinS are. And when he
reads most such writer's as these he
will have to think-in some he will
have to toll tcrrihly-or he will gel
neither enjoyment nor profit out of
them. Reading, as Locke said, but fur
niShcS the raw material of knowledge
| Il must be worked into a useful prod
uct i'll the manufactOry Of each brain
| The fool. La BruyCre truly observes
| reads Il book and understands nothing
i'll it.