Digested the masses he learned into learning.”
Try to see clearly the important divisions of a subject, to be fair minded, to draw your own conclusions, to distinguish between the probable and the improbable, to recognize the good points in each side of conflicting theories. Especially learn to classify and arrange the ideas you get from books and to unite them to what you already know.
If you can enjoy the study of some special subject connected with your occupation and keep at it long enough to make yourself master of it, you may by so doing educate yourself. You should not only study the actual operations, but you should also familiarize yourself with what has been written about them, and should make an effort to record a permanent advance made by your own exertions.
“Knowledge of books in a man of business, is as a torch in the hands of one who is willing and able to show those who are bewildered the way which leads to prosperity and welfare,” says the Spectator. How much, for example, has been lost in treasure and energy because politicians who have not read history and political economy, ignorantly persist in methods that have failed ever since the world began. “A prince without letters,” said Ben Jonson, “is a pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.” “It is manifest that all government of action is to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge, best, by gathering many knowledges, which is reading,” wrote Sir Philip Sidney.
When you read a number of books on the same topic each throws light on the other and you get deeper, clearer ideas. You think more. One subject studied thoroughly has more educational value than many looked at superficially. But while there is the greatest culture value in taking up one line of thought and pursuing it as far as possible, the importance of the broad foundation to build on must always be kept before you. “What science and practical life alike need is not narrow men, but broad men sharpened to a point,” says Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler.
There is no occupation where a fund of general information is not valuable, provided it be accurate. The knowledge of a little law is as useful to the doctor as that of a little medicine is to the lawyer.
How much more useful a man is in all branches of his calling if he knows thoroughly at least one part of it. You cannot do anything that will add more to your value to yourself and to the world in general than to study your occupation all your life. If your work as a student ends with school or college, your usefulness will be limited and you will always occupy a subordinate position.
Education is a life work, we have no time to waste, but we should take time enough to do it well. Be satisfied with a slow advance if you are getting ahead all the time, but do not be turned aside from the track.
Do not make the mistake of supposing that converse with the thoughts of men as preserved in books can take the place of communion with living men. You will get warped and unreal ideas of life if you do. Talk about what you read with intellectual people. We are educated by association with men, by pictures, by music, by nature as well as by the study of books. Commune with other men but do not omit to commune with yourself, only by so doing can you gain “that final and higher product of knowledge which we call wisdom.” “Read to weigh and consider,” said Bacon, that means to think. Wordsworth speaks of “knowledge purchased with the loss of power,” and Huxley says, “the great end of life is not knowledge but action. What men need is, as much knowledge as they can assimilate and organize into a basis for action; give them more and it may become injurious.”