THE MISUSE OF BOOKS.

Kumara Times, Issue 797, 21 April 1879, Page 4

THE MISUSE OF BOOKS.

An evening lecture at the London Institution was recently delivered by Mr Frederic Harrison, his subject being “ The Misuse of Books.” There were he said, many ways of abusing books, but not many would follow the example of a college tutor he had known, whose lifepassion was the buying and reading of books ; but who always threw the leaves, as he read them, into the fire, as either worthless or already printed on his memory. The hoarding up of rare books of which we made little or no use was a more common foible ; but the worst misuse of the art of reading 1 e knew of, and at the same time the most widely spread, was the waste of time and attention upon utterly trivial productions, while leaving unread or forgotten the greatest and best books ever written. Even scholars indulged too much in promiscuous reading, although the longest life and the greatest industry would not enable a man to master a hundredth part of the books really worth reading. The great thing to know was what sort of reading to avoid. We should be as much on our guard against a chance book as against a chance companion. The enormous multiplication of books in the present day was not wholly favourable to mental growth, and for the last 300 years it had never been harder than now to select the right books to read. He argued at considerable length on the absolute necessity of confining our ordinary reading to the very best authors, whose books, he complained, were sadly neglected in these days. He endorsed in general a proposal which had been put forth for the guidance of the more thoughtful in the choice of books for constant us", not dwelling on the theory of education underlying ir, but simply specifying the method on which it was framed. The authors comprised would not number more than between 100 and 200 ; representing poetry, history, science, and religion. The first thing was to attempt to gel together what was best in all the great departments of human thought, so that no part of culture might be wholly neglected or wanting. The next was to gather into one collection the greatest and best books in each department, and such only. Thirdly, the test of the value of the books to be what they say, not the manner of saying it. Save in the highest kinds of poetry, grace of form should not count. Lastly, the verdict to be given by the common voice of mankind. Mr Harrison added that as the best hundred books, or so, the world had long been prettv well agreed. He had provived himself with some such catalogue 20 years ago —of course, not as a bar to other reading. Such a list would serve to check indiscriminate wandering in the pathless field of literature, and tend to remind us daily how many are the books of inimitable beauty and glory which we have never even taken into our hands.