How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [170]
Instead, we are merely suggesting some approaches that may be tried in a course of independent study aimed at improving one's own reading skills. We wil employ in what follows most of the kinds of questions just described-not segregating the types in groups as is usually done-and some other kinds as well. Some are quite easy, others are very difficult; the difficult questions may be the most fun to try to answer.
Because some of the questions are very difficult, and because we have framed them with the intention as much of causing you to refiect on what you have read as to test you on what you have read, we have in many cases given more than the customary short and cryptic answers to the questions.
This is particularly so in the case of the questions in the last part of this Appendix, the section dealing with syntopical reading. There, we have taken the liberty of leading the reader by the hand, as it were, framing the questions in such a way as to suggest an overall interpretation of the texts read, and answering the questions as much as possible as though we were present in person.
I . Exercises and Tests at the First Level of Read i ng : Elementary Reading
Two short biographical sketches appear in this section of the Appendix. One outlines the life of John Stuart Mill, the other that of Sir Isaac Newton. The Mill sketch appears first, although of course Newton predates Mill by nearly two centuries.
This biographical sketch of Mill is reprinted from Volume 43 of Great Books of the Westem World. Besides the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the U.S. Constitution, and the Federalist Papers of Hamilton, Madison and Jay-the founding documents of America-that Appendix B 367
volume contains three complete works by Mill: On Liberty, Representative Government and Utilitarianism. These are three of Mill's greatest works, but they by no means exhaust his writings. The Subjection of Women, for example, is of great contemporary interest, not only because Mill was one of the first thinkers in Western history to advocate complete equality for women, but also because of the book's trenchant style and the many insights it expresses about the relations of men and women at any time and place.
At the first level of reading, speed is not of the essence.
The sketch of Mill's life that follows is about 1,200 words long. We suggest that it be read at a comfortable speed-in perhaps six to ten minutes. We also suggest that you mark phrases and sentences in the text that especially interest you and perhaps also make a few notes. Then try to answer the questions we have appended.
JoHN STUART MILL
1806-1873
Mill, in hi.; Autobiography, declared that his intellectual development was due primarily to the influence of two people: his father, James Mill, and his wife.
James Mill elaborated for his son a comprehensive educational program, modelled upon the theories of Helvetius and Bentham. It was encyclopedic in scope and equipped Mill by the time he was thirteen with the equivalent of a thorough university education.
The father acted as the boy's tutor and constant companion, allowing Mill to work in the same room with him and even to interrupt him as he was writing his History of India or his articles for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Mill later described the result as one that "made me appear as a 'made' or manufactured man, having had a certain impress of opinion stamped upon me which I could only reproduce."
The education began with Greek and arithmetic at the age of three. By the time he was eight Mill had read through the whole of Herodotus, six dialogues of Plato and considerable history. Before he was twelve he had studied Euclid and algebra, the Greek and Latin poets, and some English poetry. His interest in history 368 HOW TO READ A BOOK
continued, and he even attempted writing