CONTENTS ART. II. — Unitarian Controversies. The Christian Teacher, for April, 1839. London: containing the correspondence be- tween the Clergymen and the Unitarian Ministers at Liver- pool. Nine of the Lectures published on both sides, The History of Greece, by Thomas Keightley, to which is Third Annual Report of the American Physiological Society, ART. I. — The Satanic School in Literature and its Reformers, 1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. By VICTOR HUGO. 2. Picciola, or, Captivity Captive. By M. D. Saintine. ART. II. - Oliver Twist; by CHARLES DICKENS, (Boz.) ART. III. - Tracts for the Times. By Members of the University ART. IV. Historical Discourses 1. A Historical Discourse delivered before the Citizens of New Haven. The two hundredth anniversary of the first settlement of the town and colony. By JAMES L. Kingsley. 2. Thirteen Historical Discourses on the completion of two ART. V. — German Selections, by B. B. EDWARDS and E. A. -- translated from the German by THOMAS CONANT, in all the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is confuted, ART. VI. The School Library, Published under the sanction of 3. Lives of Eminent Individuals, celebrated in American 4. Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons: by Rev. H. DUNCAN. ART. VIII. The Life and Times of Martin Luther, Louis on the Yellow Fever. Translated by G. C. Shattuck, jr. 409 The Lecturess; a Tale; by the author of My Cousin Mary,' 410 THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. SEPTEMBER, 1839. ART. I. ON READING. THE subject of this Essay is Reading. This is, to speak technically, the great school of modern manhood. It is the continuation of that school, in which it is the privilege of our children to be brought up. Of our own country, in particular, we may say, speaking for the mass of the people, that it is the great reading country of the world. It is high time that we should enter into some serious consideration of the means by which this reading privilege may be turned to the best account. It occupies too much time to be left out of the moral account of life. Great indeed is the privilege; and when we think of nations where few of the mass of the people can read; when we think of the ages, when almost none of any class could find anything on the pages of a book but hyeroglyphics, dark as those of the Egyptian obelisks; when we think of the many heavy hours that must pass in houses where a book never enters; we cannot too highly prize our advantage. But that, which constitutes the signal advantage of modern times, is not an advantage only. It is an opportunity also; and an opportunity for what? This question I shall attempt in some meas ure to answer. There are two kinds of reading, which need to be carefully distinguished, and each to have its proper place assigned to it. There is reading for improvement, and reading for entertainment; reading as a mental task, and reading as a mental recreation; reading with thought, and reading without thought. In the one case, a man takes a book to aid his inquiries or his VOL. XXVII. - 3D s. VOL. IX. NO. I. 1 reasonings, to obtain information, or to assist his mind in coming. to some conclusion. In the other, he resorts to a book only for amusement. This distinction, I admit, is very general. But I think it will be found, without being very accurate, to answer the practical purpose which I have in view. Reading, doubtless, may combine both instruction and amusement, and the reader may seek both. In history, biography, and travels, he may often find both. But every one must be aware, that there is a great deal of reading among us, merely for entertainment. Novels are commonly read with no other view or thought. On the other hand, I wish it to be considered, that there is a kind of reading which is of a far higher character. A man may take a book with the express intent to think over it. His purpose is not passively to receive what the book communicates, but to think, to examine what the book says; to give his mind a task; to strengthen his powers. His mind is a crucible; and what he takes into it, is to be melted, and moulded into a form that makes it his own; makes it his own, not by reception, but by re-formation; not by simple transfusion, but by thorough transmutation. And no mind is worth much, without something, more or less, of this habit. This is the essential characteristic of an original mind. It is not, as many seem to suppose, that its thoughts are absolutely new; that no such thoughts ever entered the human mind before; but that it re-forms, re-arranges old thoughts, and presents them in new aspects and applications. I dwell upon this point a moment, for in this new country, where we are apt to suppose that many things are new, which are old enough, it is needful that this matter be understood. Sciolists, dreamers, fanciful and extravagant men, may have conceptions so strange, that it may seem to them and to others, that nobody ever thought the like before; and in some sense, it is very possible that nobody ever did; one may hope so, at least; but the truly comprehensive and original mind. knows that it is working with materials as old as the creation; and that not its materials, but only its method of working, can be new, or peculiar to itself. All true progress is but the reproduction of the old, aye, and commonly of the well known and familiar, in new forms. But let us procced. I say, and I will dwell upon this general distinction a moment longer, that there is a reading for the sake of thinking; for the sake of independent analysis and in |