On Being Human

Woodrow Wilson
Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D.
President of the United States

1897
From the Atlantic Monthly


On Being Human


I

"The rarest sort of a book," says Mr. Bagehot, slyly, is "a book
to read"; and "the knack in style is to write like a human
being." It is painfully evident, upon experiment, that not many
of the books which come teeming from our presses every year are
meant to be read. They are meant, it may be, to be pondered; it
is hoped, no doubt, they may instruct, or inform, or startle, or
arouse, or reform, or provoke, or amuse us; but we read, if we
have the true reader's zest and plate, not to grow more knowing,
but to be less pent up and bound within a little circle,--as
those who take their pleasure, and not as those who laboriously
seek instruction,--as a means of seeing and enjoying the world
of men and affairs. We wish companionship and renewal of spirit,
enrichment of thought and the full adventure of the mind; and we
desire fair company, and a larger world in which to find them.