ter practice was based. Nearly all real
study of any kind depends upon wide and careful reading.

Reading, in the sense here used, differs widely from the entertaining
perusal of current magazines, or the superficial skimming through
short stories or novels. Reading for material is done with a more
serious purpose than merely killing time, and is regulated according
to certain methods which have been shown to produce the best results
for the effort and time expended.

The speaker reads for the single purpose of securing material to serve
his need in delivered remarks. He has a definite aim. He must know how
to serve that end. Not everyone who can follow words upon a printed
page can read in this sense. He must be able to read, understand,
select, and retain. The direction is heard in some churches to "read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest." This is a picturesque phrasing of
the same principles.

You must know how to read. Have you often in your way through a book
suddenly realized at the bottom of a page that you haven't the
slightest recollection of what your eye has been over? You may have
felt this same way after finishing a chapter. People often read poetry
in this manner. This is not really reading. The speaker who reads for
material must concentrate. If he reaches the bottom of a page without
an idea, he must go back to get it. It is better not to read too
rapidly the first time, in order to save this repetition. The ability
to read is trained in exactly the same way as any other ability.
Accuracy first, speed later. Perhaps the most prevalent fault of
students of all kinds is lack of concentration.

Understanding. After reading comes understanding. To illustrate this,
poetry again might be cited, for any one can _read_ poetry, though
many declare they cannot understand it. The simplest looking prose may
be obscure to the mind which is slow in comprehending. When we read we
get general ideas, cursory impressions; we catch the drift of the
author's meaning. Reading for material must be more thorough than
that. It must not merely believe it understands; it must preclude the
slightest possibility of misunderstanding.

A reader who finds in a printed speech approval of a system of
_representation_ but a condemnation of a system of _representatives_
must grasp at once, or must work out for himself, the difference
between these two: the first meaning a relationship only, the second
meaning men serving as delegate