ch ranks so high
among human motives. It is a wholesome change of attitude; relieving the
fatigue of book-study, while adding to its fruitfulness. Even beginners
in study are mutually helpful, by exchanging the results of their
several book acquirements; while it is possible to raise conversation to
the rank of a high art, both for intellectual improvement and for mutual
delectation. I cannot say that the ideal is often realized; since two or
more must combine to conversation, and it is not often that the mutual
action and re-action is perfectly adjusted for the highest effect.

The last great adjunct of study is original Composition, which also
would need to be formulated distinct from the theory of book-study.
Viewed in the same way as we have viewed the other collateral exercises,
one can pronounce it too an invaluable adjunct to book-reading, as well
as an end in itself; it is a variation of effort that diverts the mental
strain, and re-acts powerfully upon the extraction of nutriment from
books. Besides the pride of achievement, it evokes the social stimulus
with the highest effect; our compositions being usually intended for
some listeners. But, when to begin the work of original composition, as
distinct from the written exercises upon books, in the way of abstracting,
amending, and the rest; what forms it should assume at the outset, and
by what steps it should gradually ascend to the culminating effects of
the art,--would all admit of expansion and discussion as an altogether
separate theme. Enough to remark here, that a course of book-reading
without attempts at original composition is as faulty an extreme, as to
begin and carry on writing upon a stinted basis of reading. The thorough
student, as concerned in my present essay, carrying on book-study in the
manner I have sketched, will almost infallibly end, at the proper time,
in a self-thinker, and a self-originator. An adequate familiarity with
the great writers of the past both checks presumptuous or hasty efforts
of reproduction, and encourages modest attempts of our own as we feel
ourselves becoming gradually invigorated through the combined influence
of all the various modes of well-directed study.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: Milton had charge of pupils in 1644, when Locke was
twelve.]

* * * * *

VIII.

RELIGIOUS TESTS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS.

Every man has an interest in arriving at truth for himself. However
usef