The books did their work, too, about that drink, and fought the devil with a finer fire." "In education," says Herbert Spencer, "the process of self-development should be encouraged to the fullest extent.

Children should be led to make their own investigations, and to draw their own inferences.

They should be _told_ as little as possible, and induced to _discover_ as much as possible.

Humanity has progressed solely by self-instruction; and that to achieve the best results each mind must progress somewhat after the same fashion, is continually proved by the marked success of self-made men." "My books," said Thomas Hood, "kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon.

The associate of Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to the noble though silent discourse of Shakespeare and Milton, will hardly seek or put up with low or evil company or slaves." "When I get a little money," said Erasmus, "I buy books, and if any is left, I buy food and clothes." "Hundreds of books read once," says Robertson, "have passed as completely from us as if we had never read them; whereas the discipline of mind got by writing down, not copying, an abstract of a book which is worth the trouble fixes it on the mind for years, and, besides, enables one to read other books with more attention and more profit." "This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you," says Trollope, "is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasures that God has prepared for His creatures.