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,