Inquiries, in-kwi'riz. Concise, kon-sisé. Is merely a primitive, or a derivative ?-an adjective, or an adverb? Opinion, ò-pin' yůn, persuasion, judgment. Maintains, supports, holds, provides with the means of subsistence. Prove, proov, show by reasoning or testimony. Margin, border, brink, edge, verge. Show it in a book. Obscure, dark, not easy to be understood, not much known. Enlighten, give light to, explain, illustrate. Spell deficiencies, concise, passages, argues. Change retrench into a noun. Which is the derivative? Impertinent, not to the purpose, meddling, foolish, trifling. Abandon, give up, resign, quit, desert, neglect. tive ? Change argue into a noun. Which is the primi What letter is dropped? Aré conclusive, prove what he intends. Spell conclusive, argument, inference, add. What is judgment? From what is it derived? Memory, mem' můr-è, the faculty of recalling or retaining things past. To what is it here compared? Analysis, a separation into constituent parts or first principles. Spell separated, treatise, references, excellencies. Distinguish, mark or point out the difference, discern. rivative? Throw, dispose of, send to a distance, reject, ment, and to give you a fuller survey of that particular subject. If a book has no index to it, or good table of contents, it is very useful to make one as you are reading it. If the writer has any peculiar excellencies or defects in his style or manner of writing, make your remarks upon these also. These methods of reading will cost some pains in the first years of your study, and especially in the first authors you peruse on any particular subject; but the profit will richly compensate the pains. One book read in this manner, will tend more to enrich your understanding, than skimming over the surface of twenty authors. And in the following years of life, after you have read a few valuable books on any subject, it will be very easy to read others of the same kind, because you will not usually find much in them that will be new to you. By perusing books in the manner I have described, you will make all your reading subservient, not only to the enlargement of your treasures of knowledge, but also to the improvement of your reasoning powers. Always read with a design to lay your mind open to truth and to embrace it wherever you find it, as well as to reject every falsehood, though it appear under ever so fair a disguise. How unhappy are those men, who seldom take an author into their hands, but they have determined before they begin, whether they will like or dislike him. What I have said hitherto on this subject, must be chiefly understood of books designed to improve the intellectual powers. As for those which are written to direct our practice, there is one thing further necessary; and it is, that when we are convinced that these rules of prudence or duty belong to us, and require our eonformity to them, we should call ourselves to account, and inquire seriously whether we have put them in practice or not; we should dwell upon the arguments, and impress the motives and methods of persuasion upon our own hearts, till we feel the force and power of them inclining us to the practice of the things which are there recommended. If folly or vice be represented in its open colors, or -Survey, sur-và', view, prospect, to have under the view, to overlook, to oversee, as one in authority, to measure land. Index, a table exhibiting the subjects treated in a book, arranged in alphabetical order. See "table of contents," explained above. Spell style, profit, skım, skimming. Manner, mån'nůr. Compensate, kom-pên'-såte. Pains, efforts, care, anxiety, labor, toil, punishment threatened, penalty. Spell profit, advantage, gain, improvement, proficiency;-prophet, one inspired to foretel future events, one of the sacred writers. Compensate, recompense, repay, counterbalance. Usually, commonly. Is it a primitive or derivative ? From what is it derived? What are some other of its derivatives? Subservient, conducive, subordinate, instrumentally useful. Is enlargement a primitive or a derivative? From what is it derived? Treasures, trèzh' ùrz, things laid up, riches accumulated. Improvement, advancement of. Spell wherever, falsehood, chiefly, designed, neces sary. .Disguise, dress designed to conceal, counterfeit show. What class of readers are here denominated unhappy? Why? What name is commonly given to that previous determination which is here censured? How does prejudice operate as an obstacle to improvement? Is this unhappiness their misfortune merely, or their crime? Intellectual powers, mental powers not belonging to the heart or will. Of what class of books must these directions be understood? What further direction is given in regard to practical treatises? Spell persuasion, colors, criminal, wrought. Hearts and lives, feelings and actions, its secret disguises, let us search our hearts and review our lives, and inquire how far we are criminal. Nor should we ever think we have done with the treatise, till we feel ourselves in sorrow for our past misconduct, and aspiring after a victory over those vices, or till we find a cure of those follies begin to be wrought upon our souls. In all our studies and pursuits of knowledge let us remember that virtue and vice, sin and holiness, and the conformity of our hearts and lives to the duties of true religion and morality, are things of far more consequence than all the furniture of our understanding, and the richest treasures of mere speculative knowledge. LESSON VI. Studies.-LORD BACON. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for abil ity. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and di Spell souls, pursuits, furniture. How may some verbs be changed into nouns ? Studies, learning, attention to books. Ornament, embellishment, splendor, elegance. Change privateness into an adjective. Ans. Private. Expert, ready, dexterous, having had experience. Change business into an adjective. What letter is changed? -.Marshalling, arranging, leading. From what is the figure taken ? Change judge into a noun. -.Plots, plans, schemes, designs, meditates. Sloth, sloth, laziness, tardiness, animal of very slow motion. .Affectation, from affect, act of making an artificial appearance. Wholly, from what is it derived? What is "whole ?" -Humor, whim, freak, moisture, practice, trick. Natural abilities, abilities not acquired, original endowments. Pruning, trimming, lopping, divesting trees of their superfluities. What is the image referred to in that expression? Crafty, cunning, dexterous, sagacious, from craft. Use them, profit by them, are benefited by them. Confute, disprove, convict of error. -Weigh, ponder on, reflect, ascertain the weight. Tasted. What are books represented to be here? Digested, concocted in the stomach, to range methodically. |