Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/147

Rh story, or touch him with a live coal of patriotic verse like Oliver Wendell Holmes's

 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down. Long has it waved on high. And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky.

With this poem should always go a brief historical account of its interesting origin and effects.

No matter, at first, how ill-written the novel may be, if only it is fetching. One of Conan Doyle's "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" would well fulfill this office. If a man were not interested in these pieces you would be justified in giving him up. But most would be interested. The story would catch the mind and launch it, and the good work would be begun. Well begun would in this case be far more than half done. From the short story the learner would pass to higher and better story themes out into prose fiction at large and into poetry. After a while he would need no more attention, as the novel he began with might lead to the reading of historical novels, histories and essays, placing him upon a literary life, proving independent and happy in that direction.

Let us now go on to inquire how we can effectively respond to the incentives impelling us to read, how utilize the facilities for reading made available by modern conditions, how gain the mental advancement which reading may bring.

One precept to this end is: save the scraps of your time. Diligently hoard and use those odds and ends of hours which so easily run to waste and which most people let run to waste. Five minutes once or half a dozen times a day, after rising, before retiring, waiting for meals, at recess or during some other lull in school work, now pass unimproved, which are probably salvable by nearly every one. Such bits of time are eminently suitable for memorizing choice verse. One reader thus imbibed the following draught of nectar from an Irish poet named Davis:

 Sweet thots, bright dreams my comfort be, I have no joy beside; Oh, throng around and be to me, Power, country, fame and bride!

On holidays many throw away whole hours together. In most cases such lost instants make up in the course of a year several days, perhaps weeks, which ought to be turned to profitable account.

Few can afford the eyesight strain necessary to read in railway carriages; but a well-lighted railway station, if you happen to be detained in it, is an eminently fit place for reading. Against such occasions, more or less frequent in every life, always go equipped with a pocket