uch
changes as shall at once preserve the author's ideas, and intersperse
them with our own. There is an ideal balance of two opposing tendencies:
one to take down the writer too literally, which fails to impress the
meaning; the other to accommodate him too much to our own language and
thinking, in which case, we shall remember more, but it will be
remembering ourselves and not him. He that can hit the just mean between
these extremes is the perfect student.

* * * * *

There are easier modes of abstracting, such as serve many useful
purposes, although not sufficient for the mastery of a leading
Text-book, or even of a second or third in a new subject. We may pencil
on the margin, or underscore, all the leading propositions, and the
typical examples. In a well-composed scientific manual, the proceeding
is too obvious to be impressive. Very often, however, the main points
are not given in the most methodical way, but have to be searched out
by carefully scanning each paragraph. This is an exercise that both
instructs and impresses us; it is the kind of change that calls our
faculties into play, and gives us a better hold of an author, without
superseding him.

A Table of Contents carefully examined is favourable to a comprehensive
view of the whole; and, this attained, the details are remembered in the
best possible way, that is, by taking their place in the scheme. Any
other form of recollection is of the desultory kind.

* * * * *

[LOCKE'S RECOMMENDATIONS.]

4. Let us next glance at Locke's method of reading, which is unique and
original, like the man himself. It is given with much iteration in his
Conduct of the Understanding, but comes in substance to this:--

We are to fix in the mind the author's ideas, stripped of his words; to
distinguish between such ideas as are pertinent to the subject, and such
as are not; to keep the precise question steadily before our minds; to
appreciate the bearing of the arguments; and, finally, to see what the
question bottoms upon, or what are the fundamental verities or
assumptions underneath.

All this is very thorough in its way; but, in the first place, it
applies chiefly to argumentative works, and, in the second place, it is
entirely beyond the powers of ordinary students. Such an examination of
an author as Locke contemplates is not seen many times in a generation.
His own controversies give but indiffere