tivated man. A hundred books procured and read
without appropriate sympathy, and interest, and thought, will merely
make an animated bookcase of the man.

Not only should the student's books be few, but as he reads he should be
constantly upon his guard. Most readers read to be informed or to be
entertained; and books of information are absorbed as if all printed
statements must of course be true, or even if not true must, as a
record, be worth knowing. This omnivorous, careless style of reading is
a grievous waste of life and energy. Were books read with critical,
enquiring thought, the time misspent in reading would be wholesomely
reduced, and readers would increase in mental power in due proportion to
their increased information.

In books of entertainment, and especially of fiction, corresponding
carefulness is necessary. There are books among the best which are, in
various degrees and ways, of evil influence, and should be read with
caution and reserve. To yield one's self to the enjoyment of an
entertaining book may be as foolish as to give one's self into the hands
of an untried agreeable companion. Ability to please is to these
incautious subjects of it a most dangerous influence; and books as well
as men when most attractive should be treated warily. In Rabelais and
Swift, in Fielding and Smollett, coarse manners must be reprobated. In
George Eliot's novels, with exceptions, and in 'Jane Eyre,' there is a
subtle taint that is unwholesome to the unguarded reader. Thackeray too
frequently compels us to associate with evil company; and, while
admiring the writer's skill, the reader should keep well outside of
almost every group in Thackeray's novels.

Distinct alike from the progressive student and the discriminating
reader, is an abundant class who, without individuality, and mere
omnivorous devotees of books, chiefly reading the lighter literature of
the day. These people, through excess and self-indulgence, become
feeble-minded, intellectually dissipated, and incapable of serious
study. In every rank of life the book-devouring vice abounds; but
chiefly among women, girls, and boys; men finding in the newspapers
their daily pabulum. This thoughtless, fragmentary, reading has
debilitated the contemporary mental fibre of the nation; and has so
absorbed the time, we cannot say the attention, of the immense majority
of the reading public, that many of them are ignorant even of the
existence of the standard works