We should read with discrimination. The world is full of books, no small portion of which are either worthless or decidedly hurtful in their tendency. And as no man has time to read every thing, he ought to make a selection of the ablest and best writers on the subjects which he wishes to investigate, and dismiss wholly from his attention the entire crowd of unworthy and useless ones. Always read with your thoughts concentrated, and your mind entirely engaged on the subject you are pursuing. Any other course tends to form a habit of desultory, indolent thought, and incapacitate the mind from confining its attention to close and accurate investigation. One book read thoroughly and with careful reflection will do more to improve the mind and enrich the understanding than skimming over the surface of a whole library. The more one reads in a busy, superficial manner, the worse. It is like loading the stomach with a great quantity of food, which lies there undigested. It enfeebles the intellect, and sheds darkness and confusion over all the operations of the mind. The mind, like the body, is strengthened by exercise, and the severer the exercise the greater the increase of strength. One hour of thorough, close application to study does more to invigorate and improve the mind than a week spent in the ordinary exercise of its powers. We should read slowly, carefully, and with reflection. We sometimes rush over pages of valuable matter because at a glance they seem to be dull, and we hurry along to see how the story, if it be a story, is to end.
At every action and enterprise ask yourself this question: What shall the consequences of this be to me? Am I not likely to repent of it? Whatever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss. Take time to deliberate and advise, but lose no time in executing your resolution. To perceive accurately and to think correctly is the aim of all mental training. Heart and conscience are more than the mere intellect. Yet we know not how much the clear, clean-cut thought, the intellectual vision, sharp and true, may aid even these. Undigested learning is as oppressive as undigested food; and, as with the dyspeptic patient, the appetite for food often grows with the inability to digest it, so in the unthinking patient an overweening desire to know often accompanies the inability to know to any purpose. To learn merely for the sake of learning is like eating merely for the taste of the food. To learn in order to become wise makes the mind active and powerful, like the body of one who is temperate and judicious in meat and drink.
Thought is to the brain what gastric juice is to the stomach—a solvent to reduce whatever is received to a condition in which all that is wholesome and nutritive may be appropriated, and that alone. Learning is healthfully digested by the mind when it reflects upon what is learned, classifies and arranges facts and circumstances, considers the relations of one to another, and places what is taken into the mind at different times in relation to the same subjects under their appropriate heads, so that the various stores are not heterogeneously piled up, but laid away in order, and may be examined with ease when wanted. This is the perfection of mental training and discipline,—memory well trained, judgment quick to act, and attention sharp to observe. We invite and urge all to turn their attention to this subject as something worthy of those endowed with reasoning powers. It is not a wearying task, but one which repays for its undertaking by making much more rich in its joys and inspiring in its hopes all the after-life of the man or woman who went forth bravely to the work which heaven has decreed as the lot of all who would enjoy the greatest good of life.
Self-Culture
Man is a wonderful union of mind and body, and to form a perfect being a high degree of cultivation is required for each component part. Those who cultivate the mental to the exclusion of the mere bodily, or at least carelessly pass by its claims, are no less in error than those who cultivate the bodily faculties to the exclusion of the mental. The aim of all attempts at self-cultivation should be the highest and most appropriate development of the entire being—physical, intellectual, and moral. It comprehends the health of the body, the expansion of the intellect, the purification of the heart. It guards the health, because a feeble body acts powerfully on the mind, and is a clog to its progress. It cherishes the intellect, because it is the glory of the human being. It trains the moral nature, because if that is weak and misdirected a blight falls upon the soul and a curse rests upon the body. As each faculty reacts upon all the others, true self-culture attends with a due proportion of care to each. It strives to retain one power whose action is too intense, and to stimulate another which is torpid, until they act in delightful harmony with each other, and the result is the healthful progress toward the highest point of attainable good.
Self-culture includes a proper care of the health of the body. To be careless of your health is to be stunted in intellect and miserable in feelings. You might as well expect to enjoy life in a dilapidated and ruined habitation, which affords free admission to the freezing blast and the pitiless rain, as to be happy in a body ruined by self-indulgence. The body is the home of the soul. Can its mysterious tenant find rest and unmixed joy within its chambers if daily exposed to sharp and shivering shocks through its aching joints or quivering nerves? How many bright intellects have failed of making any impression upon the world simply because they neglected the most obvious of hygienic laws! If God has bestowed upon you the inestimable gift of good health and a good constitution, it is your duty, as a rational creature, to preserve it. To expect vigorous health and the enjoyment which it brings, and at the same time live in open defiance of the laws of health, is to expect what can not take place. Not only is good health thus of value and one of the most important ends of self-cultivation, but we would impress on all the fact that the body is just as important a factor as the mind in the work of success, that it is just as worthy to be cultivated, so as to grow in strength and beauty, and the development of all those faculties which go to make a physically perfect man or woman.
It is a sad sight to see a brilliant mind that has dragged down a strong body, because it has been so imperious in its demands, leaving its companion to suffer for lack of attention to some of its plainest wants. It reminds one of a crazy building, tottering under its own weight, yet full of the most costly machinery, which can be run, if at all, only with the greatest caution, or the entire fabric will crumble to ruins. The lesson can not be too soon learned that, while the human body is most wonderfully complex in its organization, still such is the perfection of all nature's works that all that is demanded of us is compliance with simple rules, to enable us to enjoy health. That it is our duty as well as our privilege to so train and cultivate the body that it will answer readily all demands made upon it by an enlightened mind, and will perform all its appropriate functions in the great work of life.