METHODS OF READING.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7263, 24 January 1889, Page 3

METHODS OF READING.

When Mr Gladstone reads a book he does so pencil in hand, marking off on th_r margin those passages which he wishes to remember, querying those about wbidi he is in doubt, and putting a cross opposite those which he disputes. At the end oi the volume he constructs a kind of index of his own, which enables him to refer to those things he wishes to remember in the book. Darwin records a meeting with Buckle and " was very g _d to learn from him his system of collecting facts. He told mc that he bought all the books which he read, and made a full index, to each, of the facts which he thought might prove serviceable to hi—, and that he could always remember in what book he had read anything, for his memory was wonderful. I asked him how at first he could judge what facts woold be service-able,-and he answered that he did not knowy but that a sort of instinct guided him. From thia habit of making indices, he was enabled to give the astonishing number of references on all sorts of eub-ject-vwhich may be found in his *__i_tory of CivUisation.'" Darwin's own method, as described by his son, was not very dwsimilar. "In each book, as he read «» b* marked passages bearing on his wars, in reading a book or pamphlet bemad* pencu lines at the sides of the page, often adding ehorfe remarks, and at the end made » lig of the pages marked. When it was toi* c_-_U_rold and put away, the ma*ed PMf-Twerelooked at».*gd so a roa_abstract of the book made.