n a favorite rule with me, a rule which I have never lost
sight of, however imperfectly I have carried it out: Try to know enough
of a wide range of subjects to profit by the conversation of intelligent
persons of different callings and various intellectual gifts and
acquisitions. The cynic will paraphrase this into a shorter formula: Get
a smattering in every sort of knowledge. I must therefore add a second
piece of advice: Learn to hold as of small account the comments of the
cynic. He is often amusing, sometimes really witty, occasionally,
without meaning it, instructive; but his talk is to profitable
conversation what the stone is to the pulp of the peach, what the cob is
to the kernels on an ear of Indian corn. Once more: Do not be bullied out
of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant, with
all his knowledge and valuable qualities, and will "cavil on the ninth
part of a hair," if it will give him a chance to show off his idle
erudition.

I saw attributed to me, the other day, the saying, "Know something about
everything, and everything about something." I am afraid it does not
belong to me, but I will treat it as I used to treat a stray boat which
came through my meadow, floating down the Housatonic,--get hold of it and
draw it ashore, and hold on to it until the owner turns up. If this
precept is used discreetly, it is very serviceable; but it is as well to
recognize the fact that you cannot know something about everything in
days like these of intellectual activity, of literary and scientific
production. We all feel this. It makes us nervous to see the shelves of
new books, many of which we feel as if we ought to read, and some among
them to study. We must adopt some principle of selection among the books
outside of any particular branch which we may have selected for study. I
have often been asked what books I would recommend for a course of
reading. I have always answered that I had a great deal rather take
advice than give it. Fortunately, a number of scholars have furnished
lists of books to which the inquirer may be directed. But the worst of
it is that each student is in need of a little library specially adapted
to his wants. Here is a young man writing to me from a Western college,
and wants me to send him a list of the books which I think would be most
useful to him. He does not send me his intellectual measurements, and he
might as well have sent to a Boston tailor for a coat, wi