efined as an animal that is overfed for its size. I think that these
bewildering miscellanies would lead to an immense quantity of that
kind of overfeeding. The object of reading is not to dip into
everything that even wise men have ever written. In the words of one
of the most winning writers of English that ever existed--Cardinal
Newman--the object of literature in education is to open the mind, to
correct it, to refine it, to enable it to comprehend and digest its
knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application,
flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, address, and
expression. These are the objects of that intellectual perfection
which a literary education is destined to give. I will not venture on
a list of a hundred books, but will recommend you instead to one book
well worthy of your attention. Those who are curious as to what they
should read in the region of pure literature will do well to peruse
Mr. Frederic Harrison's admirable, volume, called _The Choice of
Books_. You will find there as much wise thought, eloquently and
brilliantly put, as in any volume of its size and on its subject,
whether it be in the list of a hundred or not.

Let me pass to another topic. We are often asked whether it is best to
study subjects, or authors, or books. Well, I think that is like most
of the stock questions with which the perverse ingenuity of mankind
torments itself. There is no universal and exclusive answer. My own
answer is a very plain one. It is sometimes best to study books,
sometimes authors, and sometimes subjects; but at all times it is best
to study authors, subjects, and books in connection with one another.
Whether you make your first approach from interest in an author or in
a book, the fruit will be only half gathered if you leave off without
new ideas and clearer lights both on the man and the matter. One of
the noblest masterpieces in the literature of civil and political
wisdom is to be found in Burke's three performances on the American
war--his speech on Taxation in 1774, on Conciliation in 1775, and his
letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol in 1777. I can only repeat to you
what I have been saying in print and out of it for a good many years,
and what I believe more firmly as observation is enlarged by time and
occasion, that these three pieces are the most perfect manual in all
literature for the study of great affairs, whether for the purpose of
knowledge or action. "They are an