"Get the spindle and thy distaff ready, and God will send thee flax."


VI.
BOOKS AND READING.

MANY BOOKS, MUCH READING.


TO-DAY every one reads. Go where you may, you will find the
paper, the magazine, the journal; printed letters, official reports,
exhaustive cyclopedias, universal histories; the ingenuous advertise-
ment, the voluminous calendar, the decorated symphony; printed
ideals, elaborate gaming rules, flaming bulletins; and latest of all,
we have begun to publish our communications on the waves of the
air. In this hurly-burly of many books and much reading, it is no
mean problem to know why one should read; and what, and how,
and when. Especially does this problem of general reading confront
the student, the lover of books, and those of the professions. Essays
are to be read, the historical, the philosophical, and the scientific;
novels, the historical and the religious; books of devotion, books of
biography, of travel, of criticism, and of art. What principles are to
guide one in his choice of reading, that he may select only the wisest,
purest, and helpfulest from all these classes of books?


WHY READ.

Read to acquire knowledge. Knowledge is the perception of truth.