THE USE OF BOOKS.
“He that shall make search after knowledge, let him seek it where it
is,” said Montaigne of books.
Whatever your purpose, books will help you to accomplish it. They make
the knowledge of mankind our own if we know how to avail ourselves
of them. Only the wise can get the best out of books, they refuse to
deliver their message to the ignorant.
Next to knowing a thing yourself the most necessary thing is knowing
where to find it, and the method of getting at the information which is
stored in books is an art that must be acquired.
It is an education to take up some subject and master it, examining
all the books about it and weighing all the varying and conflicting
opinions. You never realize the depth of human knowledge and the
difficulty of judging what the truth is, until you have found out from
your own experience the infinite labor of mastering one small division
of one subject.
From catalogues and bibliographies you may make a list of the best
works on the subject that you are investigating and you must then
quarry from these books what is of use to you and arrange it in a
logical and orderly way.
You need not read all the books; some contain what you already
know, and in many of them there is repetition of what you have seen
elsewhere. You glance through one and find little to the purpose, the
table of contents of another shows that here and there is matter that
should be looked over, at last you come to a work by a great man, a
master of the subject, every word of which must be read and pondered on.
From these books you obtain references to others that you did not
know of; judgment must be shown in concentrating yourself on what is
of real value, and in not going out of your way to explore alluring
but useless by-paths. When you take many notes in blank books it is
difficult to refer to them unless you have an index, the making and
use of which requires time, but notes taken on one side of sheets of
loose paper may easily be sorted into large envelopes according to
the divisions of the subject, and as your investigations proceed and
your knowledge widens new divisions may readily be made. There is a
decided advantage in having all the notes of a kind together and when
they are on separate pieces of paper they may be pasted or pinned in
strips and their order changed at will. You may not have your note book
with you but a bit of blank paper can always be obtained. These notes
may be a word or two here to remind you of an idea, a quotation there,
accurately copied, and, most important of all, such original thoughts
as have occurred to you. You will strengthen your mind and also improve
your diction, by writing out fully the ideas that occur to you while
reading. When you do this, you will not read so many books, but you
will derive infinitely more good from those you do read. You will pay
more attention and will be careful that what you read is worth noting.
Take notes freely and as much as possible in your own language.
“Writing maketh an exact man.” According to Dr. Watts, more is gained
by writing out once than by reading five times. What you have taken
notes of is thereby fixed in your mind and when you have classified
your subject according to its natural divisions you have, in so doing,
formed new associations which will help you to remember it.
When your materials are collected and arranged, your work is half done.
What remains requires a mental faculty of a higher order:--the power of
coördination.
Just here the difference appears between a penny-a-liner and the author
of a book of permanent value. Both men may be industrious, both may
have good ideas, but the author has a breadth of mind which enables him
to coördinate his knowledge; he pursues a connected chain of thought
leading to definite conclusions, he has assimilated what he has found
in books, reinforced it by his own observation and study, and the
result is a compact and organic whole, a material addition to the
knowledge of the world.
In the _Fable for Critics_, Lowell thus describes the unorderly worker
among books:--
“Twould be endless to tell you the things that he knew,
All separate facts, undeniably true,
But with him or each other they’d nothing to do,
No power of combining, arranging, discerning,
Digested the masses he learned into learning.”
Try to see clearly the important divisions of a subject, to be fair
minded, to draw your own conclusions, to distinguish between the
probable and the improbable, to recognize the good points in each side
of conflicting theories. Especially learn to classify and arrange the
ideas you get from books and to unite them to what you already know.
If you can enjoy the study of some special subject connected with your
occupation and keep at it long enough to make yourself master of it,
you may by so doing educate yourself. You should not only study the
actual operations, but you should also familiarize yourself with what
has been written about them, and should make an effort to record a
permanent advance made by your own exertions.
“Knowledge of books in a man of business, is as a torch in the hands of
one who is willing and able to show those who are bewildered the way
which leads to prosperity and welfare,” says the _Spectator_. How much,
for example, has been lost in treasure and energy because politicians
who have not read history and political economy, ignorantly persist in
methods that have failed ever since the world began. “A prince without
letters,” said Ben Jonson, “is a pilot without eyes. All his government
is groping.” “It is manifest that all government of action is to be
gotten by knowledge, and knowledge, best, by gathering many knowledges,
which is reading,” wrote Sir Philip Sidney.
When you read a number of books on the same topic each throws light
on the other and you get deeper, clearer ideas. You think more. One
subject studied thoroughly has more educational value than many looked
at superficially. But while there is the greatest culture value in
taking up one line of thought and pursuing it as far as possible, the
importance of the broad foundation to build on must always be kept
before you. “What science and practical life alike need is not narrow
men, but broad men sharpened to a point,” says Dr. Nicholas Murray
Butler.
There is no occupation where a fund of general information is not
valuable, provided it be accurate. The knowledge of a little law is as
useful to the doctor as that of a little medicine is to the lawyer.
How much more useful a man is in all branches of his calling if he
knows thoroughly at least one part of it. You cannot do anything that
will add more to your value to yourself and to the world in general
than to study your occupation all your life. If your work as a student
ends with school or college, your usefulness will be limited and you
will always occupy a subordinate position.
Education is a life work, we have no time to waste, but we should take
time enough to do it well. Be satisfied with a slow advance if you are
getting ahead all the time, but do not be turned aside from the track.
Do not make the mistake of supposing that converse with the thoughts of
men as preserved in books can take the place of communion with living
men. You will get warped and unreal ideas of life if you do. Talk about
what you read with intellectual people. We are educated by association
with men, by pictures, by music, by nature as well as by the study
of books. Commune with other men but do not omit to commune with
yourself, only by so doing can you gain “that final and higher product
of knowledge which we call wisdom.” “Read to weigh and consider,” said
Bacon, that means to think. Wordsworth speaks of “knowledge purchased
with the loss of power,” and Huxley says, “the great end of life is not
knowledge but action. What men need is, as much knowledge as they can
assimilate and organize into a basis for action; give them more and it
may become injurious.”