ooks and teachers are not necessary to our
instruction and welfare. We can learn all we need to know, and all we
need to do, from books and teachers that are _not_ perfect. We have no
absolutely perfect books on Grammar, Rhetoric, or Logic. Yet men learn
those sciences readily enough when they study them heartily and
diligently. We have no perfect systems of Arithmetic, Geometry, or
Algebra; of Geography, Astronomy, or Geology; of Anatomy, Physiology, or
Chemistry; of Botany, Natural History, or Physical Geography. Yet on all
those subjects men gather an immense amount of knowledge, make a
multitude of new discoveries, and arrive at a wonderful degree of
certainty.

And so with arts and trades. We have no absolutely perfect teachers or
books in music, or painting, or sculpture; in farming, or manufactures,
or trade. Yet what wonderful proficients men become in those arts! We
have no perfect teachers of languages: yet any man with a taste for the
study of them, may learn twenty or thirty of them in a life-time. Even
indifferent books and teachers will enable a man who is bent on
learning, to master the most difficult language on earth.

A man once asked me, 'Which is the best English Grammar?' My answer was,
'The first you come at. A poor one to-day is better than a good one
to-morrow. Begin your studies at once with the grammar you have; and you
will soon find out which is the best.' And so I say with regard to books
on other subjects. Make the best use you can of the books you have, and
you will soon come across better. And when you do come across them, you
will be all the better prepared to profit by them, than if you were to
waste your time in idleness till you can get hold of the best of all.
Besides; the book that is best for others, may not be the best for you.

And if a man should ask me, 'Which is the best translation of the
Bible?' I would say, 'The first you come at. Read any, till you meet
with others. Then read many, and, using your common sense, judge for
yourself which is best. That which does most to make you a good, a
strong, a useful and a happy man is the best.'

Some want books and teachers that will save them the trouble of study.
And there are none such. It would be a pity if there were. They would do
no good, but harm. Nothing strengthens and develops the mind like labor.
But if you had the best books possible they would not enable you to
acquire much useful knowledge, without close study, and v