DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 4, 26 March 1927, Page 16

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

THE OWNER OF BOOKS (Copyright 1927). are some people who like to own books, just as others own canes or teapots or any curiosity. Their house is full of bookcases, and their book shelves are full of old volumes. They haunt auction sales, and pay, if they can, fabulous prices for first editions. These people are bibliophiles. A bibliophile seems to be a person who loves the outside of books. He doesn’t care much about what is in them. The owner of books is not necessarily a great reader. Your real reader does not much care to whom a book belongs; all he wants is the information it contains. The real reader is a chooser. He can tell when he strikes a sea of innocuous platitudes or a mountain range of useless difficulties. As a matter of fact, most V>oks are mostly padding. They contain a large amount of matter merely to fill up space. Very few tell you simply and concisely what you want to know. So the older the real reader gets, the smaller his library becomes. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that his books gradually decreased in number until he had only about ten or twelve at the time of his death. There is a good'deal of snobbery and pretence about being a great reader, and keeping up with the latest books. Books pour from the presses of the world in a veritable Niagara. If a man were to read all the latest volumes, he would have nothing else to do. Emerson said: “There are 850,000 volumes in the Imperial Library in Paris. If a man were to read industriously from dawn to dark for 60 years, he would die in the first alcove.” The art of being a good reader is the art of being a good selector. It is as important to know what to choose, and what part of the book to read, as it is to be an industrious reader. This does not mean that reading should be only for a purpose, and we should never read anything but what is useful. Reading is also an amusement, and sometimes it is engaged in for the fun of the thing. But the art of skipping is necessary, none the less, and the best part of the ability to read is the ability to tell what not to read. A good reader is a skilful hunter, and not an omnivoious gulper. Monday—Style