Never, therefore, attempt anything without being able to protect yourself on it, for every time you are defeated it takes away from your prestige and you are not as respected as before.
All the knowledge you want is in the world, and all that you have to do is to go seeking it and never stop until you have found it. You can find knowledge or the information about it in the public libraries, if it is not on your own bookshelf. Try to have a book and own it on every bit of knowledge you want. You may generally get these books at second hand book stores for sometimes one-fifth of the original value.
Always have a well equipped shelf of books. Nearly all information about mankind is to be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. This is an expensive set of books, but try to get them. Buy a complete edition for yourself, and keep it at your home, and whenever you are in doubt about anything, go to it and you will find it there.
The value of knowledge is to use it. It is not humanly possible that a person can retain all knowledge of the world, but if a person knows how to search for all the knowledge of the world, he will find it when he wants it.
A doctor or a lawyer although he passed his examination in college does not know all the laws and does not know all the techniques of medicine but he has the fundamental knowledge. When he wants a particular kind of knowledge, he goes to the medical books or law books and refers to the particular law or how to use the recipe of medicine. You must, therefore, know where to find your facts and use them as you want them. No one will know where you get them, but you will have the facts and by using the facts correctly they will think you a wonderful person, a great genius, and a trusted leader.
In reading it is not necessary or compulsory that you agree with everything you read. You must always use or apply your own reasoning to what you have read based upon what you already know as touching the facts on what you have read. Pass judgement on what you read based upon these facts. When I say facts I mean things that cannot be disputed. You may read thoughts that are old, and opinions that are old and have changed since they were written. You must always search to find out the latest facts on that particular subject and only when these facts are consistently maintained in what you read should you agree with them, otherwise you are entitled to your own opinion.
Always have up-to-date knowledge. You can gather this from the latest books and the latest periodicals, journals and newspapers. Read your daily newspaper everyday. Read a standard monthly journal every month, a standard weekly magazine every week, a standard quarterly magazine every quarter and by this you will find the new knowledge of the whole year in addition to the books you read, whose facts have not altered in that year. Don’t keep old ideas, bury them as new ones come.
How to Read
Use every spare minute you have in reading. If you are going on a journey that would take you an hour, carry something with you to read for that hour, until you have reached the place. If you are sitting down waiting for somebody, have something in your pocket to read until the person comes. Don’t waste time. Any time you think you have to waste put it in reading something. Carry with you a small pocket dictionary and study words while waiting or traveling, or a small pocket volume on some particular subject. Read through at least one book every week, separate and distinct from your newspapers and journals. It will mean that at the end of one year you will have ready fifty-two different subjects. After five years you will have read over two hundred and fifty books. You may be considered then a well read man or a well read woman and there will be a great difference between you and the person who has not read one book. You will be considered intelligent and the other person will be considered ignorant. You and that person therefore, will be living in two different worlds; one the world of ignorance and the other the world of intelligence. Never forget that intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden. Therefore, remove yourself as far away from ignorance as possible and seek as much as possible to be intelligent.
Your language being English, you should study the English language thoroughly. To know the English language thoroughly you ought to be acquainted with Latin, because most of the English words are of Latin origin. It is also advisable that you know the French language because most of the books that you read in English carry Latin and French phrases and words. There is no use reading a page or a paragraph of a book or even a sentence without understanding it. If the paragraph has foreign words in it, go to the dictionary before you pass over the words if you don’t know the meaning of the words. Never pass over a word without knowing its meaning. The dictionary and the books on word building that can be acquired from book sellers will help you greatly.
I know a boy who was ambitious to learn. He didn’t have the opportunity of an early school education because he had to work ten hours a day. He was determined to learn, so he took to work with him every day a simplified grammar. He would read and memorize passages and the rules of grammar while at work.
After one year he was almost an expert in the grammar of his language. He knew the different parts of speech, he could paraphrase, analyse and construct sentences. He also took with him a pocket dictionary and he would write out twenty-five new words with their meanings every day and study these words and their meanings. After one year he had a speaking vocabulary of more than three thousand words. He continued this for several years and when he became a man he had a vocabulary of over fifteen thousand words. He became an author because he could write in his language because he had command of the words. What he wrote was his experiences and he recorded his experiences in the best words of his language. At the same time he was not able to write properly and so he took with him to work what is called a copying book and he practiced the copying of letters until he was able to write a very good hand. He naturally became acquainted with literature and so he continued reading extensively. When he died he was one of the greatest scholars the world ever knew. Apply the story to yourself.
There is nothing in the world that you want that you cannot have so long as it is possible in nature and men have achieved it before. The greatest men and women in the world burn the midnight lamp. That is to say, when their neighbors and household are in bed, they are reading, studying and thinking. When they rise in the morning they are always ahead of their neighbors and their household in the thing that they were studying, reading and thinking of. A daily repetition of that will carry them daily ahead and above their neighbors and household. Practice this rule. It is wise to study a couple of subjects at a time. As for instance, a little geography, a little psychology, a little ethics, a little theology, a little philosophy, a little mathematics, a little science on which a sound academic education is built. By doing this, week after week, month after month, year after year, you will be so learned in the liberal arts as to be ready and fit for your place in the affairs of the world. If you know what others do not know they will want to hear you. You will then become invaluable in your community and to your country, because men and women will want to hear you and see you everywhere.
As stated before, books are one’s best companions. Try to get them and keep them. A method of doing so is: Everytime you have ten cents or twenty-five cents or a dollar to spend foolishly, either on your friends or yourself, think how much more useful if that ten or twenty-five cents or dollar would be invested in a book and so invest it. It may be just the thing you have been looking for to give you a thought by which you may win the heart of the world. The ten cents, twenty-five cents or a dollar, therefore, may turn out to be an investment of worth to the extent of a million dollars. Never lend anybody the book that you want. You will never get it back. Never allow anybody to go to your bookshelf in your absence, because the very book that you may want most may be taken from the shelf and you may never be able to get one of that kind again.
If you have a library of your own, lock it when you are not at home. Spend most of your spare time in your library. If you have a radio keep it in your own library and use it exhaustively to listen to lectures, recitals, speeches and good music. You can learn a lot from the radio. You can be inspired a lot by good music. Good music carries the sentiment of harmony and you may think many a good thought out of listening to good music.
Read a chapter of the Bible every day; old and new testaments. The