READING AND THINKING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1683, 8 March 1917, Page 4

READING AND THINKING.

You can liml a number of seriousminded men who put by u certain period each day for reading. But how many of them ; a by any time at all for thinking. It would he unjust to say they do not think. But at best their thinking ift merely accidental —and apparently considered so. Surely it is as important that we lay aside a definite period each day for thinking as it is that we lay aside some time for reading. But how much this time should be, and whether it should bear any specific ratio to the time given to reading, can best be decided after a consideration of the problem of how to read.

This problem has unfortunately been much misconceived. Those who have laid stress on the maxim, “A good book should be read over and over again/’ have done so in the belief that this is the best way to get the most out of a particular hook. But the object of reading is not to get best out of any one book, but out of reading in general. A realisation of this end will change our problem somewhat. It will bring us to a consideration for example, of the law of diminishing returns. While the more we re-read a book (he more we get out of it, it must be remembered that with a few possible exceptions, every time we re-read it we add less to our knowledge than we did the previous time. This means that we can usually make much faster progress by reading other books, in which case we do not merely read over what we already know for the most part. The law of diminishing returns applies to an entire subject as well as to a single book. That is to say, past a certain point, every book we read on a particular subject, while it will probably add to our knowledge, will not yield as much return as a book of equal merit on another subject new to us. —“Thinking as a Science.”