The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-10-22
ESSAYS IN BRIEF
ON READING
By Beau Esprita


is wItty--and equally it is false!
Thomas A. Edison confesses that he
enjoys reading nothing SO much as
a Jessie James, or Diamond
Dick" hell-center, While VIM. j,
Bryan processes a preference for
old Sleuth.''
1t is rather that man CAN read
than what he DOES read that indi
Gates his true character. The point
is TO prove what one can read.
This necessitates a definition of the
terms to read" and reading" Let
me quote Brander Mathews: to
read Ia book, poem, article) is to
study. to comprehend, to achieve
something. 1t is to realize, to re-
create the thing of which the print
ed word is made, to make of 1t
living truth or living falsehood in
your own Consciousness" And Pro-
lessor Bliss Perry says of reading,
1t is the one creative art to which
every literate person has access, for
it in the reader rather than in the
writer that the substance of the
written word must be created, The
writer but furnishes the material
Reading Is the art of using that
material to it's utmost capacity
Every human mind has it's limi-
tations. There is point beyond
which consciousness cannot be
puched by will power. But cons
ciousness is living thing, and like
all living things it cannot remain
stationary. 1t must either expand
or diminish. We hear, sometimes.
of people whose mental processes
run in rut," as exempllfying that
eheir mental attitude remains on an
even plane. This is a false ex-
ample. Even rut must diminish
until it is closed. or else expand
until it is no longer rut.
The proper function of books, of
all written or printed matter. is to
provide food for thought, stimula-
ton for the conscious mind. And
in books as in all stimulant media
there are degrees. For the child
his primer; for the youth his text
book; for the adult his art, science,
philosophy. When l speak of art,
science, philosophy, l speak of them
in their broadcast terms, which, in
deed. much overlap one on another.
There is a philosophy in all fiction;
there may he art or science or both
as well.
Now, realizing that reading is the
art of producing from the materials
which writer's have placed at ones
disposal. that these materials are
variegated, and as it were, gradu-
ated to supply tee needs of infinite
consciousness, from the lowest to
the highest degrees yet attained by
the conscious mind, and that the
medium through which one must
produce from these materials Is ones
own mind. the task is to so organ
ize ones reading that the matter
which one selects will stimulate the
mind to it's utmost normal capacity,
thus causing development and ex-
pansion of ones consciousnegs-in
other words, helping one to grow
mentally and morally.
1t liz useless to read works which
one does not understand. In fact,
it is really harmful. And it is equally
uselesi and harmful to read matter
which does not cause one to think,
which does not provide stimulation
for the mind. In the first case one
is only burying his mind beneath
pile of matter which is foreign to
it, depressing his consciousness by
feeding it on matter which it cannot
assilnulate. In the second case one
is forcing his mind to descend to a
level lower than it's highest capaci-
ties, starving his consciousness by
feeding it on mattern sufficient to
maintain It Father course is fatal
to the man who depends, as we
must in here, largely on reading for
his mental stimulus. To follow
either course is to descend mentally
and morally. But if one reads
works that bring his mind TO it's full
lest capacity in the effort to realize
trte value on the material which the
Mriter has set forth therein, he will
soon find that by exercise, his cons-
ciousness has increased so that he
now can assimilate matter which
was formerly beyond his capacity;
he will find himself looking with a
real interest toward matters which
formerly were of no interest to him:
and be will find that his enjoyment
Of light reading has increased rather
than diminished as his ability to