Reading matter

“ In gathering the separate data, it may be said that we have learned how to spell, but not yet how to read and interpret the sense. The reading must be accomplished with broad, sweeping glances, and must enable us to penetrate in thought into the very synthesis of life. ”

“ To cultivate mind-reading in a sensitive, the operator should first cultivate in himself the habit of projecting mental pictures, and think of things as seen by the eye, rather than as described by words. ”

“ Observation, reading, and writing are the chief means by which thought is stimulated, the mind developed, and the intellect cultivated. The habit of looking and the habit of thinking are closely related. A man thinks as he sees; and for a mind like Shakespeare's, for instance, observation is almost the only thing that is necessary for its development. ”

“ They educate both the Understanding and the Reason. Every property of matter is a school for the understanding,—its solidity or resistance, its inertia, its extension, its figure, its divisibility. The understanding adds, divides, combines, measures, and finds nutriment and room for its activity in this worthy scene. Meantime, Reason transfers all these lessons into its own world of thought, by perceiving the analogy that marries Matter and Mind. ”

“ We need not marvel, then, that this power, which has so long been a part of ourselves, should remain unquestioned, or that we learn to read without giving a thought to the motive which impels us to learn. It may be well for even the most thoughtful among us to pause for a moment to question why everybody learns to read; to ponder the returns from the effort, the time, and the pains spent in the mastery of the art.
It is evident that our estimate of the value of reading will depend upon our kind of reading; or, in other words, the kind of knowledge which we gain from reading. ”

“ Make up your minds which, that one is to be, and then sedulously collect every scrap of information which will fit you for it. Do not be content with reading, or even with remembering what you read, but think it into shape ”

“ There is need for a new exercise and method in the teaching of reading; an exercise for teaching pure mental reading; a means of instruction in which things more reliable than words shall be taken as proof that the idea is grasped; a test of the accuracy of mental perception in which such unreliable evidence shall not be heard. ”

“ Yet the very habit of proposing these questions, however they may be answered, will involve the calling of ourselves to account for our reading, and the consideration of it in the light of wisdom and duty.
The distinct consciousness of some object at present before us, imparts a manifoldly greater interest to the contents of any volume. It imparts to the reader an appropriate power, a force of affinity, by which he insensibly and unconsciously attracts to himself all that has a near or even a remote relation to the end for which he reads. ”

“ For even a moderate proficiency in the art of reading two requirements are essential: (1) A cultivated mind quick to perceive the sequence of thoughts which the words to be read logically express, and equally quick in its power sympathetically to appreciate the sentiment with which the words are informed—the feeling, emotion, passion, which pervades them—but which they suggest rather than actually portray ”

“ Perhaps there is no more severe test of the student’s apprehension of the meaning than his emphasis—using that term in its broadest sense. Determining the central idea is essentially a logical process; the student weighs and determines the value of every word, and by a process of elimination finally fixes upon the exact thought to be conveyed. ”

“ You will observe, therefore, that, both as regards the philosophy of physics, and the philosophy of mind, all is simply a process of investigation. It is a journey of discovery, in which, in the one case, we commission our senses to examine the qualities of that matter which is around us, and in the other, endeavor, by attention to the varieties of our consciousness, to gain a knowledge of those qualities of matter, which constitute our susceptibilities of thought and feeling. ”

“ If it be politely laid down again, or perhaps lounged over for a few minutes, and then, ‘I can’t read this stupid book! Would you hand me the second volume of “The Mysterious Murder”?’ you may be equally sure that there is something wrong in the mental digestion.
If this paper has given you any useful hints on the important subject of reading, and made you see that it [Pg 31] is one’s duty no less than one’s interest to ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ the good books that fall in your way, its purpose will be fulfilled. ”

“ Before we consider how to read, some queer person may ask us to put the previous question, “Should we read at all?” Now the value of reading has, in times past, been seriously doubted by thinkers and non-thinkers. ”

“ The children are concentrating their attention upon single or isolated words instead of upon thought groups made up of several words as follows: “The cat can run—and play with the ball.”
Get the Author’s Thought
Whatever one reads, he must first determine for what purpose he is reading. A definite aim or end in view must be had to serve as a motive power. The pupil who can relate the successive events in a narrative after having read it carefully, has trained his memory. ”

“ We have already discussed the possibility of developing the innervation of the state, the distribution of books, the stimulation and direction of reading, and all the peripheral aspects of literature, and we come now to the difficult and intricate problem of whether we can do anything, and what it is we may do, to stimulate the central thought. ”

“ Psychology can only lay down the general rule.
Second, take that mind-wandering which at a later age may trouble us whilst reading or listening to a discourse. If attention be the reproduction of the sensation from within, the habit of reading not merely with the eye, and of listening not merely with the ear, but of articulating to one's self the words seen or heard, ought to deepen one's{237} attention to the latter. ”

“ In seeing the objects it contained, people would naturally find a desire to know something of them beyond what can be learned by cursory observation, and thus be led to scientific reading and scientific education. ”

“ Sight may deceive, hearing may deceive; but what we can touch and feel is real. Here we find the true basis of the popular idea of matter—that which can be felt; that which resists our muscles. It is true that in this case, also, we are thrown back upon subjective impressions, or, in other words, upon mental experiences; but these experiences have at once a certain breadth and a certain intimacy about them, which leads us in general to give them the preference, and to make what seems to be the source of them our very type of reality, to which we apply the special name of matter. ”

“ First; to develop what may be termed the logical side of reading; in other words, the intellectual side. The greatest stress should be laid on getting the sense, which is, of course, the basis of all reading. ”

“ Occasionally, however, in each book exercises somewhat more difficult or of a more or less unusual nature have been included, [Pg v] because everyone, old or young, is called upon to read a variety of material, and pupils should have some experience with selections that require special effort.
Why we read. Most of the reading which we do has one of three purposes: we read for information; we read for instruction; we read for appreciation or entertainment. ”

“ If it is true that reading resolves itself sooner or later into two elements in the reader’s mind, tables of facts and feelings about the facts, that is, rows of raw fact, and spiritualised or related facts, several things follow. The most important of them is one’s definition of education. The man who can get the greatest amount of feeling out of the smallest number and the greatest variety of facts is the greatest and most educated man—comes nearest to living an infinite life. ”

“ When the thought and the symbol have become so united that each is essential to the other, the problem of learning to read has been solved.
Fundamental Principles. There are three chief fundamental principles involved in the process of learning to read, namely:
First. Images. The thought aspect of language depends upon clear and vivid images. This is so important that unless children have such images they cannot master the symbols which represent them. One purpose of nature study, handicraft, and art is to give children these images.
[Pg 6]
Second. ”

“ The best that we have learned, that which has remained with us for life, outlived the test of examination. How can the mind thrive when matter is heaped on matter, and new materials piled constantly on old, undigested materials? ”

“ If, after considering a subject in our ordinary manner, we return upon it with the special purpose of noticing the condition of our thoughts, we shall be astonished to find how little precise they remain. On recalling the phenomena relating to a matter of fact, the circumstances modifying them, the kind and amount of action presented, the real or probable result, we shall find that the first impressions are scarcely fit for the foundation of a judgment, and that the second thoughts will be best. ”

“ Learning -- particularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books, or by nature. ”

“ By a second reading, our knowledge of the leading points will greatly assist us in collecting and remembering many of the more minute circumstances embodied in them, or intimately connected with them; but even then, an ordinary mind, and more especially a young person, will not have made himself master of all the details. ”

“ Each advance in philosophy and science is marked by the acquisition of a new idea or fact, the result of a long train of previous observations and reasonings: and the more complex the idea or the fact, the more numerous will be the reasonings, the sentences or judgments, which underlie it. What a multitude of judgments, which when expressed in language we call sentences, are implied by the two simple words humanity and gravitation! It is a truism in psychology that the terms of a proposition, when closely interrogated, turn out to be nothing but abbreviated judgments. ”

“ The reading which we should desire to cultivate is intelligent reading, that is, it should express the meaning of each passage clearly; sympathetic reading, that is, it should convey the feeling delicately ”

“ To understand the word itself it is necessary that there shall be a consciousness and an inference leading to a judgment that the word is such or such, as a sound or a written symbol, and the whole process by sensation and perception must be repeated with every word in order to distinguish it as a word. Then perception, apprehension, and reflection are all employed in confirming a judgment about the meaning of the word, and no word has any meaning until it is interpreted into concepts of number, space, motion, time, or judgment, one or all. ”

“ The amount and character of analysis in each assignment of reading should be carefully determined by the teacher as he prepares his work for each day, and he must beware of having the reading lesson become merely a formal analysis of sentence and paragraph structure, for nothing more effectively kills the pupil’s interest in reading than too much of this formal analytical drill on detail. ”

“ The aggregates of matter we analyze by the use of other matter, adding substance after substance, and varying manipulation after manipulation;—the complex mental phenomena we analyze virtually by mere reflection; the same individual mind being the subject of analysis, the instrument of analysis, and the analysing inquirer. ”

“ When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another's thoughts. ”

“ In the learning of all matters, we have to start with some one deep aspect of the question, abstracting it as if it were the only aspect; and then we gradually correct ourselves by adding those neglected other features which complete the case. No one believes more strongly than I do that what our senses know as 'this world' is only one portion of our mind's total environment and object. ”

“ It is especially in the reading of description that the study of values will prove most beneficial. There are very few readers who can make description interesting, and their failure is in most cases due to the monotony arising from their inability to perceive and make palpable the different values. The reply of Achilles to Priam becomes most interesting reading when values are carefully observed. ”

“ The subject matter is presented in such an interesting and intelligent manner that the general reader and student will receive from its study such an understanding of the subject that he will be able, in his travels, to recognize many of the earth's features about which he has read. ”

“ The uses of books are first to stimulate inquiry by awakening an interest; secondly, to clarify and classify the knowledge already gained from direct contemplation of the phenomena. They are stimuli and aids to observation andvii thought. They should never be allowed to see for us, nor to think for us. ”

“ In some problems, for example, the analysis of space and time, the nature of perception, or the theory of judgment, the discovery of the logical form of the facts involved is the hardest part of the work and the part whose performance has been most lacking hitherto. ”