often.
Do not select one for purchasing upon the basis of either mere bigness or
cheapness. If you do, you may make yourself the owner of an out-of-date
reprint from stereotyped plates. What to choose depends partly upon
personal preference, partly upon whether your need is for
comprehensiveness or compression.

If you are a scholar, _Murray's_ many-volumed _New English
Dictionary_ may be the publication for you; but if you are an ordinary
person, you will probably content yourself with something less expensive
and exhaustive. You will find the _Century Dictionary and
Cyclopedia_, in twelve volumes, or _Webster's New International
Dictionary_ an admirable compilation. The _New Standard
Dictionary_ will also prove useful. All in all, if you can afford it,
you should provide yourself with one or the other of these three large and
authoritative, but not too inclusive, works. Of the smaller lexicons
_Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Webster's Secondary School
Dictionary_, the _Practical Standard Dictionary_, and the _Desk
Standard Dictionary_ answer most purposes well.

A dictionary is not for show. You must learn to use it. What ordinarily
passes for use is in fact abuse. Wherein? Let us say that you turn to your
lexicon for the meaning of a word. Of the various definitions given, you
disregard all save the one which enables the word to make sense in its
present context, or which fits your preconception of what the word should
stand for. Having engaged in this solemn mummery, you mentally record the
fact that you have been squandering your time, and enter into a compact
with yourself that no more will you so do. At best you have tided over a
transitory need, or have verified a surmise. You have not truly
_learned_ the word, brought it into a vassal's relationship with you,
so fixed it in memory that henceforth, night or day, you can take it up
like a familiar tool.

This procedure is blundering, farcical, futile, incorrect. To suppose you
have learned a word by so cursory a glance at its resources is like
supposing you have learned a man through having had him render you some
temporary and trivial service, as lending you a match or telling you the
time of day. To acquaint yourself thoroughly with a word--or a man--
involves effort, application. You must go about the work seriously,
intelligently.

One secret of consulting a dictionary properly lies in finding the
primary, the original meaning of the word. You must go