Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1907-05-04
Keeping an Extract Book.

hESpluS dn 41ALAdIl DUUk.
Everyone who reads good deal is
shocked and discouraged TO find how lit
tie he remembers of it ALL He talks
bitterly about losing his memory" and
growing DID, and sees d0ddering i'm
hecihty just ahead of him.
This is all nonsense. ii is only tile ex-
cept:onal mind which in these "ciddy-
paced times can retain much of wbar
passes through it. Everybody forcets
If any one really wants 10 remember
Hnythng he must take some sDeciol
measures in order to do it,
There are, as we all know. memory
doc .ors You can 60 to them if YOU like
pay their price, and perhaps derive some
benefit The very fact of their weak
ness which they profess TO correct. 1t
is really not too much to say that we
all have so much to think of in these
days that nobody is able to remember
half that he wishes to. The memory doc
tors are sadly needed, and probably
they do some good. They might pos
Sibiy do more if there were more people
who had the time and money to spend
on them
The memorandum is an absolute ne
cessity in the conduct of business BY
means of it, the general lack of memory
is largely remedied. The same method
may be applied to our reading: bur
among the comparatively few who I'M
derstand the use of it only meEshand-
full are willing to put it into practice
This is too bad; for, say what You will
Of travel and society and general eX-
perience of life, it is our reading, after
all which gauges our culture. The man
who does not read lacks the browning
touch. What DR. Crothers fears is like
ly to become the lost art of reading"
must be mastered by the one who would
enter the sacred portals of the deep and
quiet thought of the best minds Even
if one cannot read much beyond the
daily newspapers and the monthly maya
zines, he can surely read foar or Eve
good books each year. Keep one at
hand, where you can pick it up easily.
and read n few pages at a time. Even a
page day is better than nothing
But even if you read only Il little. YOU
vii find that by year or two later you
cannot recall much of that little unless
You have taken some special measures
and here is something which YOU can do:
Get blank book and. as you read
write down in it the choicest sentiments
or most important facts, noting carefully
author and page. The quotation. if spar
lngly and judici0usly used. is most useful
and illuminating-bu most of us can do
little with the quotations collected by
others. Choose your own-those which
fit and explain your own line of thought,
and bear on the themes which most in
terest you. Discriminate closely De
not try to keep too much of your author
Just skim from him the cream, as you
yourself adjudge the cream. You will
find yourself taking up your extract book
or, as it is often called. your common
place book-over and over.
You will soon know its contents almost
by heart. They will become a part of
your own thinking-often helping you on
TO heights which you could never have
reached without them. AS Churton Col
Inns reminds us, How inadequately and
lmperfectly was Shakespeare's MESA sc
TO mankind understood till it found an
interpreter in COleridge. and in those
from his. $ u Who of nssean ever
forget the hour when CarlylgE burning
words made the Divine Comedy become
articulate to us and revealed what sOlace.
Sustainment and inspiration might be
found in its stern gospel"
One author will make another clear 10
YOU. \ single sentence from a real seer
may light for you whole tract which
YOU had had to travel and which had
been as dark as night. You will love
that sentence. Do not fail to keep 1t
near at hand in your extract book.
If you really want to get any sort OF
permanent culture from your reading,
and to weave its results into your own
thinking, there is probably no way on
earth so good as keeping an extract book.
Before you are aware you will have
amassed several, and will know them
pretty much by heart. Aud that IS well
kate Epson Clay, Brooklyn Eagle.