Arithmetic alone is founded
on a rock. All else is fleeting, all else is futile, chaotic - a
waste of time. What is reading but a rival of morphine? There are
probably as many men in prison, sent there by Reading, as by Rum.
"Oh, not good Reading!" says the publisher.
"Not good Rum, either," says the publican.
Fight it out. It's an even thing between the two of you; Literature
and Liquor, Books and Booze, which can take a man's mind off his
business most effectually.
Still, merely as a matter of taste, I will defend the quality of
McGuffey's School Readers against all comers. I don't know who
McGuffey was; but certainly he formed the greatest intellects of
our age, present company not excepted. The true test of literature
is its eternal modernity. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. It
always seems of the age in which it is read. Now, almost the
earliest lection in McGuffey's First Reader goes directly to the
heart of one of the greatest of modern problems. It does not palter
or beat about the bush. It asks right out, plump and plain: "Ann,
how old are you?"
Year by year, until we reached the dizzy height of the Sixth Reader,
were presented to us samples of the best English ever written. If
you can find, up in the garret, a worn and frayed old Reader, take
it down and turn its pages over.
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