Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1892 — How to Get the Most Good Out of Books. [ARTICLE]

How to Get the Most Good Out of Books.

You should treat a book as you would a person with whom you are talking for information; that is, question it, read it over and turn back and try to get at the meaning; if the book itself does not answer the question's you raise, go to some other book, ask a dictionary or encyclopedia for an explanation. And if the book treated in this way docs not teach you anything or does not inspire you, it is of no more service to you than the conversation of a dull, ignorant person. I just.used the word “inspire.” You do not read all books for facts or for information merely, but to be inspired, to have your thoughts lifted up to noble ideas, to have your sympathies touched, your ambition awakened to do some worthy or great thing, to become a man or a woman of character and consideration in the world. You read the story of a fine action or a heroic character—the death of Socrates, or the voyage of Columbus, or the sacrifice of Nathan Hale, or such a poem as “The Lady of the Lake”—not for information only, but to create in you a higher ideal in life, and to give you sympathy with your fellows and with noble purposes. You cannot begin too young to have these ideals and these purposes, and therefore the best literature in all world is the best for you to begin with. And you will And it the - most interesting—Charles Dudley Warner, in St. Nicholas.