A generation or two ago, when books for young people were very few, they were read and re-read with an avidity that would astonish a modern reader.
“If a book be worth reading once,” says Emerson, “it is worth reading twice; and if it stands a second reading, it may stand a third.”
Ruskin puts it more strongly. “No book is worth anything until it has been read and re-read and loved and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapons he needs in an armoury, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store.”
There are two ways in which self-culture by the aid of reading may be sought—by taking books and by taking subjects. Some deem it best to read “the best books” or the best authors straight away; and as we write these pages the eager application by the public for the “Hundred Best Books” (so-called) is significant. The other method is, to read by subjects—to take up, for example, some one period of the world’s history, and see what different writers have said or thought about it. The latter method may be very good, but implies a great deal of time, and access to a great many books.
PODOBIZNA.
What of attending lectures as a means of culture? There are few towns at the present day where there are not facilities for the would-be student to avail herself of “a course” on some subject or another, even if there is not “a centre.”
Much scorn has been lavished on the “University Extension” movement, and we are told of the working man who inquires, “Which d’yer like best, ’Omer or Hossian? Hossian’s my man; ’e knows a deal about natur’, does Hossian.”
It requires strong faith to believe in that working man. The whole question of the advantages of the movement, and the appropriateness, or absurdity, of its title, cannot of course be examined here. But if any girl reader has the opportunity of attending a series of lectures on some subject in which she is, or ought to be, interested, we may offer her a few hints.