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rprising discovery that some of the titles which are recommended with the greatest enthusiasm are not among the so-called classics on war. The well-read man need not have more than a dozen books in his home, provided that they all count with him, and he continues to pore over them and to ponder the weight of what is said. On the other hand, the ignorant man is frequently marked by his bookshelf stocked with titles, not one of which suggests that he has any professional discernment. The notebook habit is invaluable, nay, indispensable, to any young officer who is ambitious to perfect himself as an instructor. Most men who are distinguished for their thinking ability are inveterate keepers of scrapbooks and of reference files where they have put clippings and notes which jogged their own thoughts. This is not a cheap device leading to the parroting of other men; the truth is that the departure line toward original thinking by any man is established by the mental energy which he acquires by imaginative observation of other men's ideas. To get back to the notebook, it should be loose-leaf and well-bound, else it is not likely to be given permanent use. Whether it is kept at home or the office is immaterial. What matters is that it be made a receptacle for everything that one hears, reads or sees which may be of possible future value in the preparation of classroom work. Books can't be clipped; but short, decisive passages can be copied, and longer ones can be made the subject of a reference item. Copying is one way of fixing an idea in the memory. While on the subject of books, it is all right to quote the classics and to be able to refer to the great authorities on the science of war. But it is more effective by far to read deeply into such writers as Clausewitz, Mahan and Fuller, and to find some of their strongest but least-known passages for one's self, than to rely on the more popular but shop-worn quotations which are in general circulation. Such old chestnuts as, "The moral is to the material as three to one," do not refresh discourse. Even so, the classics are only one small field worth cultivating. Nearly every major speech by current military leadership contains a passage or two well worth salting away. The writings of the philosophers, the publications of the industrial world, the daily press and the scientific journals are goldmines containing rich nuggets of information and of choice expression worth stu
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