Making the Most of One's Mind/Chapter 7
TEXT-BOOKS AND BOOKS OF REFERENCE
ΟNE of my dictionaries tells me that a text-book is "a book containing the leading principles of a science." Another goes into more detail and explains that a text-book is "a volume, as of some classical author, on which a teacher lectures or comments; hence any manual of instruction; a school book." You will note that we have here two fundamentally different ideas of what a text-book is, and the difference arises from the relation assumed between the book and the teacher. The first definition does not mention the teacher at all; the second puts him in the forefront.
The connexion between the teacher and the text-book is an ancient one, and carries us back to very early times when there were few books indeed. There were, in fact, more teachers than books, and the business of the teachers was to acquire as much knowledge as they could from books and from inter-course with men, and then place this knowledge at the disposal of their pupils. Very often their teaching took the form of reading and explaining the few books that were at that time available. In the old schools and universities the teachers and professors used to lecture on the writings of their predecessors. Thus the writings of men like Plato and Aristotle were read, explained and criticized in such a way as to bring out their full meaning. They were treated, in fact, pretty much as a modern clergyman deals with a text from the Scriptures. The text-book was thus the basis of the lecture, it was the authority, and the teacher took the subordinate position of a mere expounder of what another man had written. Often, no doubt, the comments of the teacher were of more value than the text on which he commented. This became increasingly common in connexion with subjects of a scientific character. Fresh discoveries were made, and mistakes were found in the text. These mistakes the teacher, of course, pointed out, in order that his hearers should know the truth. But such corrections had to be most carefully made, for those old people were very jealous for the honour of their established authorities. Aristotle, for example, became for centuries the recognized authority in a great many subjects. What he said was regarded as final on any subject on which he had written, and hearers would not listen to anything opposed to him. Commentators, if they wanted to make any corrections, had to endeavour to show that the new things they wished to bring forward were really implied in Aristotle, were, in fact, what Aristotle meant all the time, though it needed clever people like the lecturers to make this evident.
As the excessive authority of the old writers waned, it was permitted to the lecturers to set forth their own discoveries, and gradually it became the custom for men who had acquired great knowledge or made important discoveries to gather together to exchange their knowledge among themselves, and to communicate to ordinary students as much of their learning as the students were ready to take in. Thus we had the gradual growth of the universities. At first the students merely listened to the professors and wrote down as much of what they heard as enabled them to store it up and carry it away with them from the university. With this part of the professors' work we shall deal more fully in our next chapter. Here we are interested in the change that took place on the invention of printing and the multiplication of books. When a learned man could put all his knowledge into the form of a book there was no longer an absolute necessity for people to assemble at certain centres so as to gather the knowledge that fell from the lips of the professors. The book began to take the place of the teacher. This is what underlies Carlyle's saying that the modern university is a library.
So far as the communication of knowledge is concerned we may accept Carlyle's statement, though, as we have seen, there are other influences at work in a university than those connected with the acquiring of information. In the meantime we are interested in the nature of the text-book that has been evolved by the diffusion of knowledge and the multiplication of printed matter. Not every text-book is meant to take the place of the teacher. At the present moment there are more text-books being printed for school use than ever before in the history of the world. But the way in which they are used is quite different from that of the old times. No doubt, even yet, in dealing with the teaching of foreign languages we have the pupils provided with a standard book in a certain language, which book is used in the good old-fashioned way as a "text" on which pupil and teacher alike work as the basis of their studies. Further, it has to be admitted that in a less legitimate way teachers of poor attainments and low ideals of their profession supply their pupils with text-books in various subjects, and use these text-books as the authority. Such teachers depend upon the books for the information the pupils have to acquire. The text-book is the master, and the teacher the mere expounder of what is to be found there.
But the really well-informed and capable teacher uses the text-book in a totally different way. For him it is an aid, and not a master. It supplies the broad outlines of the subject and fills in the necessary details. It saves the teacher from the mechanical labour of writing out lists and putting on the blackboard long tables of facts that are important in themselves, but that are common property and demand no special ability either to discover or to understand. The teacher's business is to guide his pupils in their approach to a new subject, to warn them of pitfalls, and to present matters in such a way as to avoid unnecessary expenditure of time. He must, above everything, see that the subject is treated in such a way as to meet the special needs of the pupils here and now before him. He must mediate between the text-book and his pupils. That is what a teacher is for.
Instead of taking the book and talking round it, the real teacher deals with the subject itself and falls back upon the book to supply illustrative matter, and to give in a permanent form isolated facts that otherwise would be forgotten if they were presented only once to the pupil in the course of a lesson, however excellently that lesson had been given. In the hands of a good teacher the main function of the text-book is to secure careful preparation and steady revision. The poorest teacher of all is the one who does nothing more than prescribe a certain portion of the text-book to be prepared for each day's lesson and in the class hour find out by questions whether the pupils have learned the portion set for their study. If this is the only use made of text-books the value of the teacher does not appear to be very great. All that he does is to act as a sort of external conscience and see that the pupils do their work. A student with a good working conscience of his own could do quite well without a teacher of this kind. In fact, the private student does use the text-book just in this way. He treats it as a book containing the leading principles of his subject, and sets himself to acquire those principles from the book by his own efforts.
With regard to text-books, students fall naturally into two classes. Some prefer to have all their instruction at the hands of teachers; they like to be told things, to have matters presented to them by the human voice. Others like to have facts set down before them in the cold black and white of print, and to have time to deal with them at their own pace and in their own way. The chances are that you who read this book belong to the second class. The very fact that you are taking the trouble to read these pages shows that you want to take the matter of education into your own hands and set about it in your own way. But you are not to suppose that the presence of a teacher is a disadvantage. It is quite the opposite. The wise student will take every opportunity to come under the influence of good teachers, but he will at the same time make all his arrangements to get the greatest benefit from both teacher and text-book. He will make each supplement the other. In the last resort, if a teacher is unavailable, the really earnest student will be able to make shift with the text-book alone.
So we come now to a consideration of the nature of the text-book itself. This varies according to the account it takes of the personality of the person who is to use it. Some text-books do not consider the student at all. The only concern of the author is to make the best possible presentation of his subject. Above everything he desires to give a logically arranged statement of the important facts in their true relation to each other. The subject is everything. Such books are veritable "texts." They almost demand a teacher: the matter is stated in such a bald way that the ordinary student has little chance of mastering the subject, while the somewhat easy-going student is supplied with no moral incentive to effort. The teacher can supply to the ordinary student explanations and expansions, and can apply stimulus to the indifferent one. The private student finds such books very difficult. Of course, if he has the intelligence and the grit to face and conquer them, he has a corresponding reward; for there is no triumph like that of mastering a difficult subject by sheer force of intelligent application.
Other text-books, particularly of recent years, do take account of the nature of the pupil. They recognize the distinction between presenting the matter from the point of view of the person who knows it all already and from the point of view of the person who is making his first acquaintance with the subject. The old Latin Grammars, for example began with the declensions and worked their way mercilessly through the whole of the Accident and Syntax without taking the least account of how it all struck the pupil. The rules were stated with great exactness and numberless exceptions were duly noted. Everything was as complete as the scholar-author could make it. The newer kind of Latin Grammar includes explanations and exercises. The pupil is let into the secrets of things: he is told what it is all about. Many of the newer text-books frankly adopt the pupil's standpoint, and address him in the second person. Others are a little afraid of going so far, and content themselves with referring in the third person to the student, saying that he will find this or that the better way to go about his work. Problems are often given, along with certain hints that help the student towards a solution. It is clear that in all this we are trenching upon the teacher's province. The text-book is becoming, to some extent, a teacher on its own account. There are now, in fact, all degrees of the personal appeal in text-books, from the sternly logical kind in which personality of all sorts is rigidly excluded to the kindly, confidential style of the "self-educator" text-books, that frankly try to take the place of the teacher altogether. The fewer the opportunities the student has of obtaining the services of capable teachers, the more he is inclined to fall back upon the text-books that make the personal appeal. But the private student should not confine himself to books of this class. He ought always to have on hand one or two text-books of the severely logical type, and make the best he can of them.
In using the more rigid kind of text-book the student who has no teacher should not make the mistake of thinking that he must follow the exact order of the book in dealing with the different parts of the subject-matter. He must approach the book as a source of information, but he is entitled to get that information in any order that he finds most convenient. He will first make an inspection of the book as a whole. Too frequently the student takes up a new text-book and merely sits down and starts at the beginning with the intention of going right on. But this is a bad way of beginning with some books. You should always make up your mind what you expect to get from anything you propose to read. This is essential in order that you may bring to your reading a mind ready to profit by what is presented to you. In books of the kind we are at present considering the preface usually gives little help. It generally deals with matters that interest the author rather than help the reader. The list of contents, however, is usually more enlightening and provides a sort of bill of fare from which you may choose what is most likely to prove of use to you. The index, too, must not be overlooked. It often supplies a clue to the place where is to be found the particular kind of information you desire. Your plan, of course, is to begin such a book as this at whatever point presents the closest connexion with your present knowledge. Books of this kind are to be read for the information they supply, so your conscience may be easy in the matter of skipping. You may quite wisely make up your mind that you are going to master the book as a whole, but this resolution in no way militates against the plan of dealing with the book by instalments selected at your discretion. In reading it is as true as in warfare that we should divide and conquer.
Before leaving the question of text-books it is worth while combating a popular view that a text-book has served its turn when it has given up its information to the reader. Some students, in fact, have the detestable habit of selling all their old text-books as soon as they have served their turn. The arguments in favour of this plan are plausible enough. Such books are valuable only for the information they impart; when that information is mastered they are of no more value to us than is the débris that we call a sucked-orange. Besides, progress, especially in the sciences, is so rapid that an old text-book becomes antiquated almost as soon as we have done with it. This last consideration is the only one that counts. All the rest are based on ignorance of the special value to us of any text-book that we have thoroughly studied. We have a greater familiarity with that text-book than with any other on the subject. We know our way about in it. We are able, with the minimum expenditure of time, to get out of it any information we want. We have a special interest in the book. It represents, in fact, a certain amount of paid-up intellectual capital that is squandered if we part from that particular book. If the subject dealt with in the text-book is one in which we are likely to maintain an interest in after life, there could be no better way of keeping up to date in it than by making from time to time the various corrections in our old text-book that advances in the subject make necessary. There is the further advantage in retaining our old text-books that they supply in the most effective way a record of our intellectual experience. No one who has not tried it can realize the efficiency of an old text-book in reviving in the mind the intellectual experiences that marked the original study of the subject.
In your general pursuit of knowledge you cannot confine yourself to text-books. In these, more or less systematic information is presented in certain definite subjects, but there are subjects that you are not studying systematically and that yet come your way in general reading and in connexion with composition or ordinary intercourse, and it becomes essential to know how to get answers to the questions that are constantly arising out of our ignorance. Now there is a group of books that resemble the severer kind of text-books in that they exclude the personal element and depend for their value on their strictly logical arrangement. These are known by the general name of "books of reference," and an important part of our education consists in acquiring familiarity with these means of meeting the sudden demands for information that are so frequent in actual life. The characteristic of books of reference is that they are so arranged as to provide, with the minimum expenditure of time, the precise information we may at any moment require. A text-book is to be used steadily and mastered as a whole. A book of reference is to be used only to the extent that it happens to be required.
The dictionary is probably the most characteristic book of reference, and the importance of the distinction between a text-book and a book of reference may be well illustrated by a misuse that is sometimes made of the dictionary as a source book. We naturally and properly appeal to the dictionary for the meanings of words that have troubled us in our reading or speaking, but we should not go to it to discover new words to use. We have seen that old-fashioned schoolmasters used to make up little dictionaries of words in order that their pupils might have their vocabularies enlarged. But the proper way to enlarge our vocabulary is to have intercourse with others and to read widely. In this way we get the meaning of words from seeing and hearing them used, and when we are in doubt about a word we go to the dictionary. It is true that at school exercises are often set for the very purpose of giving practice in the use of words, and as an exercise this is not open to objection. But there is sometimes a danger of carrying dictionary work too far. There is, for example, a book, excellent in itself but liable to abuse, that seeks to combine the dictionary function with the word-supplying function. It is known as Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Classified and Arranged so as to facilitate the expression of Ideas and assist in Literary Composition. The very word Thesaurus, meaning treasure-house, reminds us of the old-fashioned books of the same sort. The first half of the book is arranged in such a way that the words are classified under six categories or headings. We have words dealing with each of the following six subjects, (1) Abstract Relations, (2) Space, (3) the Material World, (4) Intellect, (5) Volition, (6) Sentient and Moral Powers. The idea seems to be that if we are writing on any of these subjects we might naturally consult the vocabularies in order to get the proper words for our purpose. On the other hand, the second half of the book is made up of a list of words alphabetically arranged and with references to the place where the word occurs in the first half, so that if a reader has a difficulty with a word he may turn it up under its proper category and see it explained and illustrated by quotations. Though the book may be quite wisely studied as a text-book, its best use is certainly as a book of reference.
The danger of going to a dictionary to get a word to use in a composition is well illustrated in the misuse of the English side of the dictionary of a foreign language. In learning languages other than our own we have to use the dictionary a great deal, but we ought to use almost exclusively the part of the dictionary that gives the foreign words followed by their English equivalents. Thus, when we are studying Latin, we have two parts to our dictionary: one is called Latin-English, the other English-Latin. Now the student should confine himself almost entirely to the Latin-English part. My Latin professor at the university used to say that he would gladly make a bonfire of all the English-Latin dictionaries in the world. His animosity was aroused because students, in translating English into Latin prose, would go to the English-Latin part and find there words that they had never seen before and use them in a wrong sense. The careless schoolboy looks up a word in his English-Latin dictionary and finds perhaps a list of half a dozen equivalents. If he is a simple soul he selects the first and uses it. If he is more sophisticated he selects one about the end of the list, to show that he has really looked at them all. It is a mere chance if he hits upon a reasonable word to fit into his context. The danger is greatly enhanced if the dictionary is a mere list of words, a vocabulary. With a dictionary of this kind a boy will unblushingly present pater genus as his version of "kind father." It is true that genus means kind, but kind in the sense of sort or species. Here the word genus is a substantive or noun and obviously is not to be used as an adjective, and a student who had exercised the least care would have been warned off such a mistake by finding after the word the contraction subs, or at anyrate the letter n.
Sometimes, to be sure, there is a list of nouns that look equally well to the student, and he has to take his choice among them. Thus, in French, a boy may show up the sentence: "M. Rondeau était la meilleure allumette de la ville." When he looked up the word match, he had his choice of égal, pareil, parti, mariage, alliance, allumette, and mèche. Of these the only one he was sure could not be right was mariage, since it would be absurd to say that a man was a marriage. He did not like to take the very last word offered, so compromised on allumette.
The same thing naturally applies to adjectives. The word chosen may be an adjective right enough and yet not the right adjective. When a student shows up "une opinion indigente" as French for "a poor opinion," he is using a wrong adjective. In this particular case, the boy explained that he knew the ordinary French word for poor all right, but pauvre seemed to him too easy and common a word; so he had looked up the English part of his dictionary and thus come to disaster. If this boy had had any feeling for words, he would have guessed from its English equivalent that the adjective indigent had to do with the particular kind of poverty that can be expressed in terms of lack of money, and therefore has nothing to do with a matter of opinion. The boy was right enough, as it happens, in thinking that pauvre was too familiar a word for this connexion, and with his limited knowledge of French he could not be expected to be aware that the appropriate word is triste. Still, if he had had the sense and the opportunity of turning up a bigger dictionary, one that gives illustrative instances, it is almost certain that he would have found an example of triste used in this special sense.
Without going the length, then, of burning all the English-Foreign dictionaries, we may lay down the principle that these should be used sparingly. In particular, small dictionaries of this kind are to be avoided. These are little more than lists of words, with no indication of special connexions in which they should be used. Most of the bigger dictionaries give such suggestions about the nature of the words as prevent the careful student from making a serious misuse of a term. We are always entitled to use the English side of a dictionary when we remember vaguely the sort of word we want and feel sure that we would recognize it when we see it. For example, we may know definitely that there is a French equivalent for donkey, and that it is different from the ordinary word âne, but we forget what that equivalent is. When we turn up the dictionary under the word donkey and find the word baudet, we know that that is exactly what we want. We recognize the word, though we were unable to recall it. Speaking generally, indeed, the English part of a foreign dictionary should always be used under the condition that it is in every case to be edited by the experience of the student. It is a capital rule never to use a word that we find in a dictionary unless we have some memory of having seen that word actually used in the language in question. The student, in fact, is entitled to any word a book can offer him, if only his previous knowledge is sufficient to enable him to make an intelligent use of that word.
You will note that stress has been laid on the size of a dictionary, and this has been done deliberately, for size is an important factor in determining the use to be made of a dictionary, whether foreign or English. Even in the case of the purely English dictionary we have various sizes, with their corresponding uses. First of all there is the little dictionary that lies on the desk of the person who is shaky in spelling. Where meanings of words come into consideration, a somewhat larger dictionary is required. A further demand for the derivation of words and their history makes still bigger books necessary. Then we come to dictionaries that give all manner of illustrative quotations under each word. To these there is almost no limit of size. The Century Dictionary (six volumes), The Standard Dictionary (two huge volumes), The Imperial Dictionary (four volumes), The Encyclopædic Dictionary (seven volumes and a supplementary volume) are all excellent. They combine the good qualities of a dictionary with those of an effective small encyclopædia. In this respect they differ from the monumental work edited by Sir James A. Н. Murray, called A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, or, for short, The Oxford Dictionary. This is often spoken of as the greatest dictionary that has ever been published. It is purely literary, omits the encyclopædic element, and. specializes on the use of words as words. It is specially valuable through its copious illustrations of words as found in standard authors and in ordinary speech.
So far we have been dealing with ordinary dictionaries, in which the main interest is in words, but the convenience of the alphabetical arrangement of information is so great that it has been applied in other directions. At the end of any of the bigger dictionaries you will find lists of various kinds all giving information that it is hardly the business of the ordinary dictionary-maker to provide. Thus, turning to the end of the second volume of my copy of Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language, I find the following additional dictionaries: (1) an Explanatory and Pronouncing Dictionary of the Names of Fictitious Persons, Places, etc.; (2) a Pronouncing Gazeteer or Geographical Dictionary of the World; (3) a Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary; (4) a Pronouncing Vocabulary of Greek and Latin Proper Names; (5) a Pronouncing Vocabulary of Common English Christian Names; (6) a Dictionary of Quotations, Words, Phrases, Proverbs and Colloquial Expressions from the Greek, the Latin, and Modern Foreign Languages; (7) an Alphabetical Catalogue of Abbreviations and Contractions used in Writing and Printing; (8) a List of the Arbitrary Signs used in Writing and Printing.
It is difficult to realize what a storehouse of information is here provided. With one of those big dictionaries at hand, with its supplementary lists, it is astonishing how independent the private student may be. These supplementary lists are often quite interesting in themselves, and an idle half-hour might be worse spent than in glancing over them. But this is not the use for which they are intended. Just as the ordinary dictionary is not meant to supply words to be used, so these special dictionaries are not meant to give information as a text-book would, but to supply at a moment's notice a piece of information that is necessary to enable us to understand something that we are reading or studying. Some authors are very "allusive," by which it is meant that they are much given to referring without explanation to things found in other books and languages. A well-educated and widely-read man can usually follow all the references made by such allusive writers, but a young student cannot be expected to catch on to all the author suggests. It is in trouble of this kind that these supplementary dictionaries are a very present help. Frequently you will have to spend a little more time over a matter than you need have had you but had fuller information to start with. For example, a student came across a reference to a person called Prester John. He looked up the Biographical Dictionary first, under Prester and then under John, without success. Then he turned to the Dictionary of Fictitious Persons, where he found this was "the name given in the Middle Ages to a supposed Christian sovereign and priest of the interior of Asia, whose dominions were variously placed." In this case the student was somewhat to blame for the time he wasted in looking up the Biographical Dictionary first, for the passage that had led him to make inquiries ran, "as mythical as Prester John." From this he ought at once to have inferred that he was dealing with a person to be found among the fiction group. A little preliminary reflection often saves a deal of unnecessary investigation.
Separate dictionaries are also published of Biographies, Fictitious Persons, Quotations and what not. There is one in particular that is invaluable to all readers who are anxious to have light thrown upon obscure references in their reading. It is called A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable[1]: is the work of Dr. E. C. Brewer; and contains all sorts of curious information, arranged in a very convenient way.
Certain dictionaries are not very much to be recommended, since they are prepared to meet a need that ought not to arise. A Rhyming Dictionary, for example, supplies lists of words that rhyme with any given words. If you want a word to rhyme with larch, you turn up this dictionary, where you find the words arranged alphabetically, but placed according to their last letter instead of the first. Thus for larch we turn to the h's, then run down till we come to the ch's, the rch's, and finally reach the arch's. In one such dictionary[2] we find the following list: arch, search, cimeliarch, chiliarch, mysteriarch, patriarch, heresiarch, larch, March, anarch, monarch, parch, hierarch, tetrarch, starch. Obviously not all these words rhyme with larch, though they all end in the same four letters. The reader is supposed to use his intelligence in selecting what meets his needs. Other rhyming dictionaries confine themselves to words that do rhyme. Thus in one dictionary[3] is found the following list: arch, march, parch, starch, and the reader has the assurance that he has here all the possible English rhymes to larch.
But as a matter of fact, many people object to this hunting for rhymes. They maintain that unless the appropriate words suggest themselves there is little chance of anything really artistic resulting. The objection is the same as that we made to the use of the dictionary as a mere verbal mine from which to dig out words to express our meaning. I have heard this word-digging defended by a reference to what Kipling says of his early work: "I dredged the dictionary for adjectives." But when you consider the matter, you will see that he was not seeking unknown adjectives by running his eye up and down the columns of the dictionary. What he did was to use the dictionary as a reviver of words with which he was familiar. In the same way a rhyming dictionary may be to some extent justified as a means of presenting a complete list of the possibilities, the whole merit of the writer lying in the skill with which he chooses the appropriate word.
A dictionary of synonyms is open to somewhat the same objection as the rhyming dictionary, though perhaps in a less degree; for it is conceivable that a student may want to look up synonyms in order to discriminate carefully among them, and not merely to find a word to alternate with another. Remember that in the last resort there are really no such things as synonyms. However alike two words may appear to be in meaning, there is always just that shade of difference between them that makes one right and the other wrong in any particular case. It is this delicate perception of the only word that really suits the particular occasion that marks the artist in words.
There is another kind of dictionary that is of great use to all who have much to do with reading and writing. This is called a concordance, and consists of a collection of the more striking passages in any author arranged under the characteristic words to be found in these passages. This enables us to find with the minimum of trouble exactly where a certain passage occurs. If we wish, for example, to find where the passage "The wages of sin is death" occurs in the Bible, we take a concordance of the Bible and turn up any one of the important words—wages, sin, death—and we find the passage quoted, with the reference Romans 6. 23. Now though it is true that the passage occurs in the concordance under all three words, it is not a matter of indifference which of them you choose as your guide. The principle to follow is always to select the word that is least common. Of the three words, wages, sin, death, the first is to be preferred, as it does not occur so frequently in the Bible as the other two. In point of fact, if you care to look up a Bible concordance, you will find that there are not more than about fourteen references under wages, while there are two or three columns of references to sin, and about as many to death. There are concordances to several of our great writers. Mrs. Cowden Clarke has an excellent Complete Concordance to Shakespeare, for example, and though there is not yet a complete concordance to Dickens, there is an excellent Dickens' Dictionary, by Gilbert A. Pierce, which provides a "Key to the Characters and Principal Incidents in the Tales of Charles Dickens."
You will have noticed that the use of the word "dictionary" is rather loose. Referring to Webster, I find that dictionary means, in the first place, "a book containing the words of a language arranged alphabetically, with explanations of their meanings; a lexicon; a vocabulary; a word-book"; and in a secondary way, "a book containing the words belonging to any system or province of knowledge; as a dictionary of medicine or of botany; a biographical dictionary." The point common to the principal and the derived meaning of the word dictionary is clearly that it deals with "the words," and with these in an alphabetical order. Its business is regarded as complete when it has given the meanings of the words involved, whether in connexion with Medicine, Botany, or Charles Dickens. The subject-matter is not the important thing, but the words and their special application. Yet it is clear that we often go to a dictionary for information that does not stop at words. In some of our bigger dictionaries, for example, we get a fairly full account of certain things, with drawings and descriptions that certainly carry us far beyond the range of mere words. And, after all, this tendency of dictionaries to become storehouses of general knowledge is only a recurrence to what was a former use of the word dictionary.
When books were rare and knowledge limited, there was not the same dividing up of the realm of knowledge into separate departments that is common to-day. People did not then talk about "subjects" as we do. With the limited amount of knowledge then available it was not impudent, as it would be now, for a man to "take all knowledge to his province." Accordingly it was not unusual for a man to write a treatise in which he hoped to include all human knowledge. Even as late as the sixteenth century it was still possible for a man to publish an encyclopædia that was supposed to exhaust human knowledge. Early in the seventeenth century we have an encyclopædia published by Johann Heinrich Alsted. This professed to give a complete account of human knowledge, but was superseded in 1673 by an encyclopædia published by a Frenchman called Louis Moreri. The great improvement introduced by Moreri was that he did not attempt to arrange his matter like Alsted on what was called a scientific basis. He did not classify his information according to the connexion of one subject with another. He adopted the alphabetic system, so that while his readers did not have, as in Alsted's work, a consecutive presentation of knowledge, they had the great advantage of being able to turn at a moment's notice to the particular bit of knowledge that they wanted. It is obvious that in introducing this change Moreri acknowledged the predominance of words, that his work was, in fact, a dictionary rather than a mere encyclopædia. Indeed, he marked his change in attitude by the adoption of a different form of title. He dropped Alsted's word Encyclopædia and called his work The Great Historical Dictionary. Since his time the alphabetic arrangement has been found so satisfactory that it has been retained in all the important encyclopædias that have succeeded his.
You will see, then, that our bigger dictionaries are becoming practically small encyclopædias, the main difference being that the dictionaries still retain their loyalty to words to the extent of including every word, as a word, giving its use and derivation and other etymological particulars, while the encyclopædias content themselves with giving only those words that represent matters that require explanation. The dictionaries still retain such words as do, between, often, and, hullo, which, pleasant, while the encyclopædia confines itself mainly to nouns or such other parts of speech as have acquired a substantive meaning by their connexion with other matters. The dictionary is, therefore, still the proper court of appeal in matters of words, while the encyclopædia is a storehouse of easily accessible information about things or persons.
Encyclopædias vary considerably in size, and with the size we should vary our use of them. We should use a little encyclopædia in quite a different way from a big one. The biggest encyclopædia ever published is known as the Encyclopædia Britannica. It is a very old book, the last volume of the first edition being published in 1771. It has, of course, been revised from time to time, and the current edition has been brought up to date and appears in thirty-two large volumes. The smaller encyclopædias may be represented by Chambers' Encyclopædia in ten volumes, and Harmsworth's Encyclopædia in the same number of volumes of a somewhat smaller size. For many purposes the student will find the smaller encyclopædias of more use than the larger. To begin with, they have the matter more condensed. As a rule you do not want a complete account of any subject. You want merely that bit of the subject that meets your immediate needs. When you turn up a subject in the Britannica you are frequently met by a treatise that would make quite a respectable volume if published by itself, and the chances are that if you are looking for some particular fact you will find great difficulty in separating it out from the mass of other material that the encyclopædia so generously provides. These long articles are often of the greatest value in themselves. They are really standard treatises on their subjects by specialists of established reputation, and for those who mean to study a subject they afford excellent material. But regarding an encyclopædia as largely a sort of first- aid supply of information, you will probably find it to your advantage to keep to the smaller kinds.
To obviate the difficulty of finding what you want in the Britannica, its publishers have added an index, which forms a volume by itself, and is most helpful to the student. It seems rather a queer thing that an encyclopædia, the subjects of which are arranged on an alphabetic classification, should require an index. But it is obvious that since certain articles are as big as ordinary books, it cannot be always possible to set out the matter in such a way that the general reader can be sure to pick out just those elements that he may happen to need at a particular moment. There cannot be a separate heading for every item that is to be found within the covers of such huge books.
To illustrate the use of the encyclopædia, let us take my experience with regard to an Italian called Uccello. I had a vague impression that I had read or heard somewhere that this Uccello was the originator of the science of Perspective, I had occasion to use the origin of certain sciences as an illustration in a lecture I was preparing, and I wanted to verify my vague impression. Now this verification of floating knowledge is one of the chief functions of the encyclopædia. Accordingly I turned to my Britannica (which was the Ninth, and not the newest, Edition) and looked up under U, but found no reference to Uccello. Next I looked up the index and there found a reference to a mountain in Italy called by this name. This did not promise very much, as I was in search of a man, not a mountain. However, in case there might be a connexion between the man and the mountain, I turned as directed to Vol. XIII and found that the Pizzo d'Uccello was 6155 feet high. As this did not seem to advance matters much, I deserted Uccello and turned to Perspective. But all the Britannica had to say under this head was "See Projection." Naturally I proceeded to see Projection. But there I had little satisfaction, for the gentleman who treated of Perspective as part of this subject was too much taken up with his complicated drawings to spare any time for the history of the development of the science. Turning, however, to the small print at the end of the article, I found the note that Perspective dates back to the time of the Greek mathematicians, but that its modern developments cannot be traced farther back than the time of the Renaissance, "when the first books on the subject appeared in Italy." This so far confirmed my first impression, but it was now necessary to find out what Uccello's share was in this development.
My next reference was to Harmsworth's Encyclopædia, where under the heading Uccello I found that this was the name of a person known otherwise as Paolo di Dono, who was born at Florence and lived from 1396 to 1475; that he was a pupil of and collaborator with the famous Ghiberti; and that he afterwards studied painting. Chambers' Encyclopædia did not include Uccello under U; but in the article on Perspective this book told me that the subject was known to the ancients, that the knowledge had been lost during the dark ages, but had been revived by Albert Dürer, and Brambantino, and that its rules had been extended by Peruzzi and Ubaldi (about 1600). This did not look very well for Uccello's claims, and gave me a bias against him, for I had been asking myself why he had acquired the additional name Uccello. I knew that this was the Italian word for a bird, but that it was also used in a contemptuous sense to mean a simpleton. I asked myself whether the man di Dono was called Uccello in contempt. Everything tended to discountenance the view that he had originated the science, and had I had to make up my mind on the spot, I should have voted against him.
Fortunately, however, I was not pressed for a decision, and I was able to wait till next day, when I could consult authorities that were not available in my study. In the newest edition of the Britannica I found that the index gave three references to Uccello, one under Bellini, one under Glass, and one under Fresco. But on turning up the places I found nothing but a passing reference to some of Uccello's paintings. With the New International Encyclopædia I was more fortunate, for under Uccello I was told that he was so called because of his fondness for birds. This cleared him from the charge of being a simpleton. But more important was the note that "under Manetti he acquired the facility in Perspective which became the main feature of his work." This closed the inquiry, so far as my purpose was concerned. If Uccello had a master in Perspective he could not properly be said to originate the science, though he might well be its most brilliant exponent. Had my main interest been in the evolution of Perspective, my next proceeding would naturally have been to follow up Manetti in his turn. Indeed there is always a temptation to the intelligent student to follow up any inquiry on which he starts. But this temptation must be resisted. When we are at a loose end, it may be quite a desirable thing to follow up interesting investigations, but we must keep in view in our studies the main lines, so as to make systematic progress, and not be allured into following the strange gods of desultory reading. So long, however, as we maintain a rational connexion among the various parts of our studies, we may find it highly desirable to follow the clues supplied by books of reference.
While the encyclopædia may be regarded as mainly a first-aid knowledge-provider in cases of emergency, it has also a function that connects it with the text-book. A student may want not so much help with a particular point as a general treatment of a subject with indication of how to get further knowledge about it. Now at the end of every article of any importance in a modern encyclopædia there are to be found a few notes about where further information on the subject treated is to be obtained. Notes of this kind, giving references to books or periodicals or documents where further information may be had on a given subject, are called bibliographies, and it is becoming more and more usual to give a bibliography, not only at the end of an important article in an encyclopædia, but also at the end of an ordinary book. These bibliographies serve the double purpose of giving the reader some idea of the sources from which the author has derived his information, and suggesting lines along which the reader can proceed in working up the subject still further. It is becoming more and more usual in giving such bibliographies to supply a running commentary on each of the books or papers mentioned, so that the reader is enabled to know the sort of information he may expect to get from each of them. For it is not to be supposed that an ordinary reader is in a position to read all the books suggested on a given subject, even if he were able to procure them.
Elderly teachers, professors, clergymen, and literary men generally have a little grudge against young people who have essays to write or addresses to deliver at literary societies. These young people have an exacting way of writing to their elderly acquaintances, and even to people whom they have never met, asking for a list of books on the subjects on which they have chosen to write or speak. But a great part of the value of the training involved in preparing such essays and speeches is gained by discovering sources for ourselves. The lowest state of all is that of the person who says, "I am very anxious to write, if I only knew what to write about." This is a hopeless case, and such persons should be urged not to trouble about writing at all. But once you have selected a subject, there need be little difficulty in getting sufficient matter. Locke has an account of the pitiable condition of children who are asked to do a composition and wander about among their elders saying "pray give me a little sense." These children are in exactly the same position as those who plead for literary help. Some of them, in fact, do not content themselves with asking for a list of books, but coolly ask for "arguments and lists of heads and illustrations." Consider here what we have already said about providing our own premises. It is not, of course, possible to invent facts. We must content ourselves with the facts that are available, but in constructive thinking the choice of relevant facts is of the essence of the whole matter. In dealing with a book that has been recommended to us by some one else we must still, it is true, make our own choice of the facts that are of importance for our purpose. But the choice of the book itself is a preliminary for which we ought to make ourselves responsible.
With the abundance and variety of books of reference now available there is not the slightest difficulty in boring into the very heart of any subject. An ordinary alphabetical encyclopædia provides an immediate introduction to the subject as a whole, and supplies you with a list of books, any one of which is almost sure to give references to many more. Before you have spent a fortnight on the subject you have at your disposal a list of books that would take years to exhaust. Naturally you have to exercise a certain amount of common sense and intelligence. That's what study is for. If you are invited to give an account of Shakespeare's England. it is not reasonable to turn to the encyclopædia and read up all it has to say about Shakespeare, and then all it has to say about England. A great deal of the article on Shakespeare will be found to be quite irrelevant, and practically the whole of the article on England is beside the point. The real problem is what sort of England did we have between the years 1564 and 1616?
The answer is not to be obtained directly from any one article. You have to look at the matter from the point of view of history and common sense. You will turn to your old history book that you studied as a pupil, and there look up your period and revive your memory of what the late Tudor and early Stuart period was like. You will pay special attention to the section on social conditions. Then you will turn to whatever books on Shakespeare are easily accessible, and glancing through the contents and the index select whatever seems relevant to the particular matters you are considering. The Britannica article on Shakespeare, for example, gives about six large pages at the beginning to matters that directly bear on this subject. There is a mixture of geography and history that supplies just the material you require, and if you have in view only a short school essay, you have all that is necessary. But even for this purpose it is always well to consult more than one authority. What is wanted is your reaction to the facts that you discover, not a mere restatement of what you find in a book, and naturally if you have consulted only one book you have a strong tendency merely to reproduce, whereas when you have consulted many authorities, you must at least collate.
If you have in view a more ambitious essay, you will naturally have to go farther afield. You will, of course, consult the bibliography at the end of the Shakespeare article, and see first which of the books referred to bear upon your subject, and then which of these suitable books are available at whatever library is open to you. Naturally you will consult the "subject catalogue" at your library, under various heads that you think likely to offer help: Shakespeare, History, Literature. You may chance upon a book with the very title of your essay. If you do hit upon a volume on Shakespeare's England, you will find it almost as great a hindrance as it is a help. While it supplies you with a great deal of matter, it limits you, because it treats that matter in a certain way, and you will find it very difficult to avoid adopting the same line of treatment. Many writers when dealing with a given subject of a literary kind, carefully avoid reading anything that is written definitely under the same title. They want to be able to deal with the matter freely. You must remember that it is a restraint even to have to consider how another person has dealt with the same matter.