Note 6 — II HARVARD PAPERS

These conditions of intellectual nourishment were long ago recognized in other, less formal, departments of mental training. In his essays on Books and Reading President Porter wrote in 1871: “The person who asks. What shall I read? or, With what shall I begin? may have read for years in a mechanical routine, and with a listless spirit; with scarcely an independent thought, with no plans of self-improvement, and few aspirations for self-culture. To all these classes the advice is full of meaning: ‘Read what will satisfy your wants and appease your desires, and you will comply with the first condition to reading with interest and profit.’ Hunger and thirst are better than manifold appliances and directions, in respect to other than the bodily wants, towards a good appetite and a healthy digestion. If a man has any self-knowledge or any power of self-direction, he is surely competent to ask himself what is the subject or subjects in respect to which he stands most in need of knowledge or excitement from books. If he can answer this question, he has gone very far towards answering the question, ‘What book or books can I read with satisfaction and profit?’” (Chap. iv, p. 39.)