at you always with the same one sign. And, once committed to writing,
discourse is tossed about everywhere indiscriminately, among those who
understand and those to whom it is naught, and who cannot select the fit
from the unfit." Plato further complains, adds Mr. Martineau, that "Theuth,
the inventor of letters, had ruined men's memories and living command of
their knowledge, by inducing a lazy trust in records ready to their hand:
and he limits the benefit of the _litera scripta_ to the compensation it
provides for the failing memory of old age, when reading naturally becomes
the great solace of life.... Plato's tone is invariably depreciatory of
everything committed to writing, with the exception of laws."

This was also the early Rabbinical view, for while the Law might, nay,
must, be written, the rest of the tradition was to be orally confided. The
oral book was the specialty of the Rabbinical schools. We moderns, who are
to the ancients, in Rabbinic phrase, as asses to angels in intellect,
cannot rely upon oral teaching--our memory is too weak to bear the strain.
Even when a student attends an oral lecture, he proves my point, because he
takes notes.

The ideal lies, as usual, in a compromise. Reading profits most when,
beside the book, you have some one with whom to talk about the book. If
that some one be the author of the book, good; if it be your teacher,
better; if it be a fellow-student, better still; if it be members of your
family circle, best of all. The teacher has only succeeded when he feels
that his students can do without him, can use their books by themselves and
for themselves. But personal intercourse in studies between equals is never
obsolete. "Provide thyself with a fellow-student," said the Rabbi.
Friendship made over a book is fast, enduring; this friendship is the great
solace. How much we Jews have lost in modern times in having given up the
old habit of reading good books together in the family circle! Religious