st or comprehensive principle can be found to govern the reading of
books that cannot be made to apply, by one who really believes it
(though in varying degrees), to the genius and to the dolt. It is a
matter of history that a boy of fine creative powers can only be taught
a true relation to books through an appeal to his own discoveries; but
what is being especially contended for, and what most needs to be
emphasised in current education, is the fact that the boy of ordinary
creative powers can only be taught to read in the same way--by a slower,
broader, and more patient appeal to his own discoveries. The boy of no
creative powers whatever, if he is ever born, should not be taught to
read at all. Creation is the essence of knowing, and teaching him to
read merely teaches him more ways of not knowing. It gives him a wider
range of places to be a nobody in--takes away his last opportunity for
thinking of anything--that is, getting the meaning of anything for
himself. If a man's heart does not beat for him, why substitute a
hot-water bottle? The less a mind is able to do, the less it can afford
to have anything done for it. It will be a great day for education when
we all have learned that the genius and the dolt can only be
educated--at different rates of speed--in exactly the same way. The
trouble with our education now is, that many of us do not see that a boy
who has been presented with an imitation brain is a deal worse off than
a boy who, in spite of his teachers, has managed to save his real one,
and has not used it yet.

It is dangerous to give a program for a principle to those who do not
believe in the principle, and who do not believe in it instinctively,
but if a program were to be given it would be something like this: It
would assume that the best way to do with an uncreative mind is to put
the owner of it where his mind will be obliged to create.

First. Decide what the owner of the mind most wants in the world.

Second. Put this thing, whatever it may be where the owner of the mind
cannot get it unless he uses his mind. Take pains to put it where he can
get it, if he does use his mind.

Third. Lure him on. It is education.

If this principle is properly applied to books, there is not a human
being living on the earth who will not find himself capable of reading
books--as far as he goes--with his whole mind and his whole body. He
will read a printed page as eagerly as he lives, and he will read it in