Year: 1869

In an article on "HOw to Read in the
October number of orr Youna Folks, the
Rev. Edward Everett Hale says:


Whether to copy much from books or
not? That is qucstiOn,-and the an
swer ,-"That depends" If you have
but few books, and much time and paper
and ink. and if You are likely to have
fewer books, why, nothing is nicer and
better than to make for use in later life
good extract-boOks to your own taste, and
for your own purposes. But if you own
your books, or are likely TO have them at
command, time is short, and the time
spent in copying would probably be better
spent in reading. There are some very diff
fusive books, difficult because diffusive, of
which it is well to write close digests, if
you are really studying them. When we
read John Locke, for instance, we had 10
make abstracts, and we used 10 stint our
selves to a line for one of his chatty see
tions. That was good practice for writing,
and we remember what was IN the sections
to this hour Ifyou copy, make a first-rate
index to your extracts. They sell books
prepared for the purpose. but you may
just as well make your own.


You see | am not contemplating any
very rapid or slap-dash work You may
put that on your novels, or books of amuse-
ment if you choose, and | viii not be very
cross about it; but for the books of i'm
provemcnt, want YOU to improve by read
ing them. Do not "gobble" them up So
that five years hence YOU shall not know
whether you have read them or not
What | advise seems slow to you.
but if you will, any of you, make or find
two hours day to read in this fashion,
xrOr, will ha do oil
women. Very few professional men,
known to me, get so much time as that for
careful and systematic reading. II any
boy or girl wants really to know what
comes of such reading, | wish he would
read the life of my friend George Liver
more, which our friend Charles Deane has
just now written for the Historical Society
of Massachusetts, There was a young
man, who when he was boy in a store
began his systematic reading. He never
left active and laborious business; but
when he died, lie was one of the accom-
plished historical scholars Of America. He
had no superior in his special lines OF
study he was recognized authority and
leader among men who had given their
lives to scholarship.


| have not room to copy it here, but |
wish any of you would turn to Il letter of
Frederick Robcrtson's, near the end of the
second volume of his letters, where he
speaks of this very matter. He says he
read, when he was at Oxford, but sixteen
books with his tutors. But he read them
so that they became part of himself, :" as
the iron enters mans blood" And they
were books by sixteen of the men who
have been leaders OF the world. No bad
thing, dear Stephen, to have in your blood
and brain and bone, the vitalizing element
that was in the lives of such men.


| need not ask you to look forward SO
far as to the end of life as long as Mr.
George Livermore's, and as successful |
Without asking that, l will say again,
what implied in August, that any person
who will take any special subject of de-
tail and in well-provided library will
work steadily on that little subject for Il
fortnight, will at the END of the fortnight
probably know more Of that detail than
ANYBODY in the country knows If YOU
will study by subjects for the truth, you
have the satisfaction of knowing that the
ground is soon very nearly all your own.


do not pretend that books are every
thing. | may have occasion some day To
teach some OF you How to Observe" and
then shall say some very hard thiagS
about people who keep their books So
close before their eyes that they cannot
see Gods world, nor their iellowmen and
women. But books rightly used are soci-
ETY.. Good books are the best society;
better than is possible without them, in
any one place, or in any one time. To
know how To use them wisely and well,
is to know how To make Shakespeare and
Milton and Theodore Hook and Thomas
Hood step out from the side of your room,
at your will, sit down at your fire, and
talk with you for an hour. | have no
such society at hand, as | write these
words, except by such magic.