The man who reads well is the man who thinks well, who has a backgroud for opinions and a touchstone for judgement. He may be a Lincoln who derives wisdom from a few books or a Roosevelt who ranges from Icelandic sagas to The World History. And reading makes him a full man, and out of his fullness he draws thant example and precept which stand him in good stead when confronted with problems which beset a chaotic universe. Mere reading, of course, is nothing. It is but the veneer of education. But wise reading is a help to action. American versatility is too frequently dilettantism. But reinforced by knowledge it becomes motive power. 'Learning,' as James L. Mursell says, 'cashes the blank check of native versatility.' And learning is a process not to be concluded with the formal teaching of school days or to be enriched only by the active experience of later years, but to be broadened and deepened by persistent and judicious reading. 'The ture University of these days is a collection of books,' said Caryle. If that is not the whole of the truth, there is enough of it for every young person to hug to his bosom.

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