ondly, that adequate power of attending to motives may become a permanent factor of his life.

Read, therefore, the following with greatest care:

"Variations in the relative strength of motives mainly arise from the degree of attention that we give to them respectively." People often act wrongly or unwisely because they fail here. "Thus, for example, a hungry man, seeing bread in a baker's window, is tempted to break the glass and steal a loaf of bread. The motive here is the prospect of satisfying his hunger. But the man is not a mere machine, impelled by a single force. He knows that if he is caught, he will be punished as a thief. He knows, too, that this is a wrong act which he is considering, and that his conscience will reprove him. Now he can fix his attention upon one of these restraining motives. The impulse to break the glass thus loses its power. The element of time is an important factor, for the longer he delays and deliberates, the more numerous will be the restraining motives which arise in his consciousness."

But avoidance of crime is a very small part of most people's lives. For the majority, "How to get on in all good ways," is a comprehensive, and the ruling, question. The value of attention obtains here in ways similar to those above suggested. A strong Will is demanded. Ability to hold the mind to one thing is imperative. Power of concentrating thought upon motives, and the best motives, is called for every day of our existence. The great symbol of all our exercises, therefore, is Attention! ATTENTION!

But the words which we have so often met in the preceding pages indicate the ultimate and priceless goal:

"I RESOLVE TO WILL! THE MOOD OF EMPHATIC PERSONALITY IS MINE!"

WHO READS?

Reads "Witless One"?
Behold him run

The race of prose or rhyme!
Reading 's an art

Of head and heart

Never a thief of time.

Love's "Thought" the pause
On trenchant clause;

'Tis matter him engages.

The first has speed

And verbal greed,

Devouring countless pages.

In Browning's book

Or Saturn's nook

Hides God-the Question Mark.

Goes soul all in?

All, soul must win;

Goes less? The thing is dark.

'Tis Truth's old fashion

To answer passion;

'Tis soul's, to grow by giving.

Now if you read

As martyrs bleed,

You know-then-glorious living.

-THE AUTHOR.

66

區

CHAPTER XIX.

ATTENTION IN READING.

DISTINGUISHED lawyer of an Eastern city

relates that while engaged in an argument

upon which vast issues depended he suddenly realized that he had forgotten to guard a most important point. In that hour of excitement his faculties became greatly stimulated. Decisions, authorities and precedents long since forgotten began to return to his mind. Dimly outlined at first, they slowly grew plain, until at length he read them with perfect distinctness. Mr. Beecher had a similar experience when he fronted the mob in Liverpool. He said that all events, arguments and appeals that he had ever heard or read or written passed before his mind as oratorical weapons, and standing there he had but to reach forth his hand and seize the weapons as they went smoking by."-Newell Dwight Hillis.

THEORY OF CHAPTER.

Concentrated attention the price of understanding; Exhaustive understanding the only true reading; Review and discussion the storing methods of memory; These exercises, deliberately and persistently followed, sure developers of the scholar's Will.

PRELIMINARY.

There is at once too much reading and too little. The great modern dailies are harming the minds of metro

politan peoples. Multitudes read from sheer mental laziness. Journalism must therefore be sensational in an evil manner. Even magazine literature scours worlds for fresh chaff illustrated by "lightning artists." These influences, and the infinite flood of matter, make genuine reading among many impossible. For reading, in its real sense, is a deliberate process by which written thought is transferred to the mind, and there stored and assimilated. All this involves power of Will. But power of Will is a rare possession in these days of multitudinous distractions. Hence it is that true reading is almost a lost art. How shall this lost art be regained? By development of that reason-forged but magic gift, Attention.

"Read not to contradict nor to believe, but to weigh and consider," said the wise and "woodeny" Bacon. "To weigh and consider" that is the open sesame of acquire these abilities the

right reading. In order to following directions will serve:

Exercise No. 1.

RÉGIMES.

Procure any well-written book on any subject worth knowing. Read the title with great care. State in your own language exactly what you suppose the title to mean. Look up the definitions of all words. Examples: "History of the United States." What is history? What is a written history? What is the difference between the two kinds of "history"? What is the main idea in "United States"? How did this name originate?

Now read the author's name. Before proceeding further, memorize an outline of his life. Ascertain his place in letters. What value are you to put upon his work? This done, read with some care the table of contents. You ought now to have the general drift of the book, to

gether with its purpose. If these do not appear, take another book and repeat the above exercises. Continue

this exercise during life.

Exercise No. 2. Presuming that, with such examination, you wish to go on, read the preface very carefully. Having finished it, ask yourself what the author has here said. Make sure that you know. Then ask, Why has he said this in a preface? Did he need a preface? Does this preface really pre-face, so far as you can now judge? Make this a permanent régime in reading.

Exercise No. 3. If the book has an introduction, read that with the greatest attention. An author is sometimes misunderstood in many pages because his introduction has not been read. At the end of its reading, outline from memory what it has brought before you. Now ask, again, Why should he have written that introduction, or what he has written here as an introduction? Very likely, you are at this time as ready to lay the book aside as you may become later. Make this exercise a permanent part of serious reading.

Exercise No. 4. To make sure about this, read attentively the first twenty-five pages of the book. In these pages do you see anything new, anything interesting, anything of value to you? If nothing new, interesting or valuable gets to the fore in twenty-five pages, you are probably ready to sell that book at a large discount. The rule, however, is not infallible. Reading is frequently like gold-mining: the richest veins are not always readily discovered. Some of George Eliot's works require a yoke of oxen, so to speak, to drag the mind into them; but once in, it cannot escape her spell. Many books which are perennially acknowledged cannot be rigidly subjected to these tests. Something, too, depends upon the reader's