XV.-ON THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.

1. EVERY book has its own attractions; but certain books would charm us all-charm every good mind. I should give every young man Gibbon's History of the Roman Empire to read, as an education in itself. No one can read it without seeing that Gibbon was the best read man of England in his time, and that, therefore, few men could have accomplished so much. He was a perfect library in himself; a skeptical man, and a man of the world also; yet his moral sentiment was always erect for justice and truth. His great work cannot be omitted by any young man who wishes to have in English the best history of the past.

2. If he wants, however, a moralist, if he wants a noble soul, every way instructive, he should read Boswell's Life of Johnson, one of the most entertaining of books, and one of the greatest variety in its charms, because it comprehends the history of the brightest men in England at a time of great brilliancy-that is, when Burke and Fox and Gibbon and Goldsmith were on the stage together and were continually meeting in conversation. I should think Boswell's Life of Johnson a good book for a young man out of the line of difficult.study, for it should be an entertainment to him and nothing more.

3. No wise young man can do without reading Bacon's Essays; they are full of sense and truth. If you are led to the Life of Lord Bacon, you will thereby become acquainted with the most important period in English history-the time when the two greatest lights of England at that period, and one of them the greatest light that ever was in England-Shakspeare were surrounded by able men; the time of Elizabeth and of James; the time of the great concentration of intellectual light in England.

4. There never was such a period in the world. The only one comparable to it is that of the Greek age when Pericles* was surrounded by the great artists, the great poets, the great historians and philosophers of Greece. These are the two re

* Pronounced pĕr'ri-kleez.

heir

markable periods of intellectual light-the time of Elizabeth

and the time of Pericles.

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price was gradually reduced; and now a better DiDie can be bought for a shilling than could at one time be bought for fifty pounds.

4. In the manufacture of cotton goods also the use of machinery has produced wonderful differences in price, because it has so much lessened the cost of production. Seventy years ago, cotton-spinners, with their machines, spun fine cotton threads that could not have been spun at all by hand, and which then sold at twenty guineas a pound. Since that time the use of better machines has so much lessened the cost of producing these fine threads or yarns, as they are calledthat the same quality of yarn can now be sold at fifteen shillings a pound.

5. Before the stocking-loom was invented a good pair of stockings cost five shillings, because of the amount of labor required to make them; by the same amount of labor with the stocking-loom a woman can make so many pairs that each pair can be sold for a shilling. Within the last few years farmers have begun to use reaping- and thrashing-machines, because they find that, after adding together the cost of the machines and the cost of the labor required to work them, it costs much less to reap and thrash the wheat by these machines than to do it by the hand.

6. By the sewing-machine a woman can do twenty times as much work as with her needle; the invention has made the labor of sewing twenty times as productive as before. This being the case, the cost of the labor of sewing with it is only one~~~t of the labor of sewing with the needle,

the gast

SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Accomplish: Fr. accomplir; fr. L. ad and com'pleo, comple'tum, to fill up; fr. ple'o, ple'tum, to fill; h., com-plement (full quantity or number), com-plete, com-pliment (lit., a fulfilling; h., a discharge of one's words of regard, etc.), de-pletion (an emptying), ex-pletive (used to fill out), im-plement (whatever may supply a want), man-ipulate (L. manip'ulus, a handful, fr. man'us, hand), plethoric (of full habit), re-plete, sup-plement (that by which anything is made full), sup-ply, etc. . . . Comprehend: v. ENTERPRISE. . . . Conversation: v. CONTROVERSY.... Difficult: L, difficilis; fr. dis, negative, and fa'cilis, easy; fr. fá'cio I do;

XV. ON THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.

1. EVERY book has its own attractions; but certain books would charm us all-charm every good mind. I should give every young man Gibbon's History of the Roman Empire to read, as an education in itself. No one can read it without seeing that Gibbon was the best read man of England in his time, and that, therefore, few men could have accomplished so much. He was a perfect library in himself; a skeptical man, and a man of the world also; yet his moral sentiment was always erect for justice and truth. His great work cannot be omitted by any young man who wishes to have in English the best history of the past.

2. If he wants, however, a moralist, if he wants a noble soul, every way instructive, he should read Boswell's Life of Johnson, one of the most entertaining of books, and one of the greatest variety in its charms, because it comprehends the history of the brightest men in England at a time of great brilliancy—that is, when Burke and Fox and Gibbon and Goldsmith were on the stage together and were continually meeting in conversation. I should think Boswell's Life of Johnson a good book for a young man out of the line of difficult.study, for it should be an entertainment to him and nothing more.

3. No wise young man can do without reading Bacon's Essays; they are full of sense and truth. If you are led to the Life of Lord Bacon, you will thereby become acquainted with the most important period in English history-the time when the two greatest lights of England at that period, and one of them the greatest light that ever was in England Shaksproduction by writing and by printing that the scribes stood no chance of getting a living, and very soon lost all their work.

3. The material also was made more productive by the use of machinery for printing. The same quantity of paper that made only one written book was enough to make many printed books, so that there was a saving of materials as well as a saving of labor. The cost of producing books having been so

much reduced by the use of printing machinery, owing to their taking so much less material and labor to make them, their price was gradually reduced; and now a better Bible can be bought for a shilling than could at one time be bought for fifty pounds.

4. In the manufacture of cotton goods also the use of machinery has produced wonderful differences in price, because it has so much lessened the cost of production. Seventy years ago, cotton-spinners, with their machines, spun fine cotton threads that could not have been spun at all by hand, and which then sold at twenty guineas a pound. Since that time the use of better machines has so much lessened the cost of producing these fine threads or yarns, as they are called— that the same quality of yarn can now be sold at fifteen shillings a pound.

5. Before the stocking-loom was invented a good pair of stockings cost five shillings, because of the amount of labor required to make them; by the same amount of labor with the stocking-loom a woman can make so many pairs that each pair can be sold for a shilling. Within the last few years farmers have begun to use reaping- and thrashing-machines, because they find that, after adding together the cost of the machines and the cost of the labor required to work them, it costs much less to reap and thrash the wheat by these machines than to do it by the hand.

6. By the sewing-machine a woman can do twenty times as much work as with her needle; the invention has made the labor of sewing twenty times as productive as before. This being the case, the cost of the labor of sewing with it is only onetwentieth of the cost of the labor of sewing with the needle, and even after adding the greater cost of the machine the cost of producing goods by the sewing-machine is so much less than the cost of the same goods sewed with the needle that they can be sold at a much lower price.

7. Now, it is quite plain that all consumers benefit by the use of machinery, as they get commodities at a lower price in consequence. The only persons who are thought to lose by the

use of machinery are the work-people, some of whom are sometimes thrown out of work by the use of a new inachine which requires fewer persons to attend it. But even these lose for a time only, because the increased demand for the cheapened articles always, in the end, gives employment to a larger number of people than were employed before the machine was used.

8. This has clearly been the case with the use of machinery for printing. When this was first used, all the scribes lost their employment, but before long there was more than enough employment for them at the printing-presses because of the greatly increased demand for books. Within a very few years there were twenty times as many printers employed as there once were scribes, and there can be no doubt but that there are now hundreds of times as many persons employed in producing books as there would be if books were not printed.

9. Ninety years ago a cotton-spinning machine was invented that enabled one man to do the work of twenty, and so threatened to turn out of work nineteen out of every twenty handspinners. This caused them to be alarmed, to cry out against the use of these machines, and even to go about the country breaking them up, as they were thought to be the greatest enemies to the spinners. And so for a time they were; but it was not long before the decrease in price that followed the use of this machine so greatly increased the demand for cotton yarns that there were many more persons wanted to attend to the new machines than were before wanted to work the spinningwheels.

10. So much has the demand continued to increase that for every cotton-spinner at work ninety years ago there are now a hundred; yet people said that the use of machinery would ruin the work-people. Twenty years ago, when passenger railways were coming into use, there was just as great an outcry against them; it was said that they would ruin all the people who owned coaches and coach horses, as these would all be useless. But that was soon found to be a mistake, and now it is well known that there are many more horses and coaches