however, he should endeavor to perceive whether it is a mere fact or definition, or whether it has a reason, and if he cannot at the time understand the reason he should accept the statement only tentatively, making a note of it as something which he must return to and study further if he wishes thoroughly to master the subject.

(a) THE STUDENT MUST DISTINGUISH CLEARLY BETWEEN READING AND UNDERSTANDING.—Reading alone, no matter how extensive, or how retentive the memory, will not give wisdom or power.

"Who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself."

No doubt every one finds himself at times reading merely words or phrases without understanding them, reflecting about them, or translating them into terms which are intelligible to his understanding. Such reading is worse than useless; it leads to actual mental injury. Whenever we find ourselves doing this we should therefore arouse ourselves, make an effort of will, and concentrate our attention upon the subject, insisting upon understanding it. If for any reason we are unable to do this, we should close the book, take some exercise or recreation, or at any rate do something else, for we are not at the moment fitted for study. We might as well eat sawdust and deceive ourselves with thinking that we are taking nourishment. It is not what is read or what is remembered, but only what is understood, that gives power,

"In this quest of knowledge ... there are two faults to be shunned—one, the taking of unknown things for known, and giving an assent to them too hastily, which fault he who wishes to escape (and all ought so to wish) will give time and diligence to reflect on the subjects proposed for his consideration. The other fault is that some bestow too great zeal and too much labor on things obscure and difficult, and at the same time useless."—Cicero: de Officiis.

(b) THE STUDENT MUST CLEARLY DISTINGUISH MERE FACTS FROM CONCLUSIONS OR OPINIONS.—Mere facts, some of which may be the result of laborious investigation, may be accepted without verification, if the authority is good. When the student reads that the river Nile rises in Equatorial Africa, flows in a northerly direction through Egypt into the Mediterranean sea, he cannot verify this statement nor reason out that it must be so. It is a mere fact and a name, and he simply accepts it, perhaps looking at the map to fix the fact in his mind. So, too, if he reads that the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, or that a cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds, he cannot be expected to perform the experiments necessary to verify these statements. If he were to do this throughout his reading, he would have to make all the investigations made in the subject since man has studied it, taking no advantage of the labor of others.

Very different are conclusions or opinions deduced from facts; and logical conclusions are very different from mere opinions. The facts may be sufficient to prove logically a certain conclusion. On the other hand, the facts may simply give reasonable ground, or appear to give reasonable ground, for a certain opinion, though they may fall far short of demonstration. The student must, therefore, discriminate constantly between mere statements of facts, necessary conclusions which follow therefrom, and mere opinions which they seem to render reasonable.

Some conclusions also, like those of mathematics or logic, may be arrived at by the unaided reason without the previous accumulation of facts deduced from experiments or observation. Such truths or conclusions should be distinguished from those which are based upon facts, experiments or observation. If the student reads, therefore, that the sum of the angles of a plane triangle is equal to two right angles, he should see that this is not a mere fact, but an inevitable truth, the reason for which he should perceive, and not accept simply because he reads it.

The continual exercise of this discrimination, which comes from an attitude of mental courage and independence, is an essential of proper study.

(c) THE STUDENT'S MIND SHOULD BE A CONTINUAL INTERROGATION POINT.[1]—He should always ask himself, regarding any statement which he reads, whether there is a reason for it, and if there is, whether it is inherent in the nature of things, so that he might independently arrive at it, or whether it follows from facts which the writer has observed. For instance, there is at first sight no reason why a cubic foot of water should weigh 62.4 pounds. It simply does and that is all there is to it; it does, because it does. But if he reads that a cubic foot of water at one point on the earth's surface weighs less than it does at another point, or that in the Northern Hemisphere the wind in a storm revolves around the storm center in a direction contrary to the motion of the hands of a clock, he should perceive that these facts, if true, have a reason for them, and he should endeavor to perceive that reason.

It must be observed at this point that, strictly speaking, there must be a reason for any truth, even for what we may term mere facts, excepting those which are mere definitions. There is some reason, lying in the constitution and arrangement of its atoms, why a cubic foot of water at a given spot and at a given temperature weighs 62.4 pounds. But there is no reason why New York is 90 miles from Philadelphia; those two points 90 miles apart are simply so named or defined. Many truths which are accepted as mere facts, the explanation being unknown, in the course of time are explained by the progress of science. Thus, for many years the fact that a magnetic needle pointed toward the North was a mere unexplained fact, but later the reason was discovered. The same is true of the fact that the pollution of drinking water by sewage may cause typhoid fever. The point is that the student must continually discriminate, continually inquire, and, as he reads, keep a list of points, the reason for which he cannot then discover, but which he perceives must have a discoverable reason. He should not go too deeply into this, but should preserve his sense of proportion; for if he follows every possible line of inquiry back to its source he will progress but slowly. Thus, if he is studying descriptive astronomy and reads that the sun is ninety-two million miles from the earth, or that Jupiter has nine moons, or that the star Sirius is moving away from the earth with a velocity of eleven miles per second, or that the moon always turns the same half toward the earth, he should perceive that he cannot at that stage try to get back of these facts, but he may well make a note of them as questions to be later examined, if not as to the cause, at least as to how the fact is ascertained.

It does not follow that he should never leave the subject until he has found a reason, for it may depend upon facts or principles of which he is not at the moment informed; but if such is the case, he should accept the fact tentatively, but make a mental note that it is something which clearly must have a reason which he is capable of perceiving, and which he will look up at some future time. In studying his book he may well make a list of such questions to ask the teacher or to look up later.

Students must of course proceed in a systematic way, and a student who has