ew toward it.
The only fundamental outfit a man can have for reading books in all four
ways at once is his ability to take the point of view of the man who
made the book in all four ways at once, and feel the way he felt when he
made it.

The organs that appreciate literature are the organs that made it. True
reading is latent writing. The more one feels like writing a book when
he reads it the more alive his reading is and the more alive the book
is.

The measure of culture is its originating and reproductive capacity, the
amount of seed and blossom there is in it, the amount it can afford to
throw away, and secure divine results. Unless the culture in books we
are taking such national pains to acquire in the present generation can
be said to have this pollen quality in it, unless it is contagious, can
be summed up in its pollen and transmitted, unless it is nothing more or
less than life itself made catching, unless, like all else that is
allowed to have rights in nature, it has powers also, has an almost
infinite power of self-multiplication, self-perpetuation, the more
cultured we are the more emasculated we are. The vegetables of the earth
and the flowers of the field--the very codfish of the sea become our
superiors. What is more to the point, in the minds and interests of all
living human beings, their culture crowds ours out.

Nature may be somewhat coarse and simple-minded and naive, but
reproduction is her main point and she never misses it. Her prejudice
against dead things is immutable. If a man objects to this prejudice
against dead things, his only way of making himself count is to die.
Nature uses such men over again, makes them into something more worth
while, something terribly or beautifully alive,--and goes on her way.

If this principle--namely, that the reproductive power of culture is the
measure of its value--were as fully introduced and recognised in the
world of books as it is in the world of commerce and in the natural
world, it would revolutionise from top to bottom, and from entrance
examination to diploma, the entire course of study, policy, and spirit
of most of our educational institutions. Allowing for exceptions in
every faculty--memorable to all of us who have been college
students,--it would require a new corps of teachers.

Entrance examinations for pupils and teachers alike would determine two
points. First, what does this person know about things? Second, what is
the condition