READING AND INDEXING.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1008, 24 December 1910, Page 10

READING AND INDEXING.

A writer m ,the ' "Manchester. Guardian discusses a-problem .that somebody ought, to discuss • to the point of solution :-t- • ;

Olio of tlio interesting things about the ''Quaker's Postis'that iii one of the letters of which it is made.up no less a person than. William Penn. gives a friend of his certain counsels as to the practice of reading. What lie.says about the keeping of memoranda is suggestive. His friend is to read 1 pencil in hand and whenever ho conies upon a striking passage ho is to write upon tlio .margin of the page a'word that will serve as a key to its contents. Then when ho has finished the book ho is to'collect, .all' such-words; with a reference" to'.the ..pago. upon'which they occur, on a. separate sheet of paper) and that sheet is either.to be fixed into the book itself or its various entries to be digested in_ a general index of his readmg. lo this advice, excellent in theory, the ordinary reader will,, no-doubt, havo his . objections. He will object that, unless ho is reading with a very definite purpose, the: importance of ahv passage, as often as not, occurs only by way of afterthought and when the'book has passed out of his hands, and that even if he sec 3 it at the time of reading,. yet the hitting upon the one inerrant word which will sum up the suggestion: of the passago. is often a hard task. To which it may .be answered that both difficulties will be overcome by-a little, or, at the worst, by a great deal, of practice and the troublo is worth taking. On the other hand, as .to which .of the two suggested alternative ' methods of keeping his memoranda ho will adopt a reader ' will probably be guided. by. his' habit of mind. .If his memory visualises powerfully, so as to enable him to retain long after reading-it the mental image of a pa go sufficiently vividly to enable him to identify thebook in which it occurs, tho inset- leaf will bo enough. If, on the-other hand, his mind is of a more vigorous and appropriate kind and at once detaches the idea from its context and fixes it in its own- place in his system of. thought, the general index will bo preferable. In the. latter case,' although the 'method of indexing expounded and practised by John Locke, is a sore trial to careless flesh and blood, - it is perhaps the. best for the purpose devised by man. If, thus, memoranda' may bo defined as jottings ,to roinind us of what we havo read, marginalia may be described as tlio reactions of tlfe mind upon one's reading, whether recorded oil tho margin or not. There is no one of a mind so unoriginal and jaded as not to experience them, and regarding them also Penn has something'to say. Ho notes their spontaneity: "they come without toylo or beating tho Brain, therefore the purer, and-upon all subjects, Nature, Grace, and Art." Ho notes their tendency to epigrammatic form; they "aro usually short, hut full and lively"; and, finally, he notes their elusivcness: "I have few things to remember with niore trouble than forgetting of such irrecoverable Thoughts and Relloctions, I-have lost a volume of them." Therefore'"observe to put down in a Pocket-bonk, for that purpose, all such openings of moment."