TIME TO READ.

Temuka Leader, Issue 10462, 26 October 1929, Page 1

TIME TO READ.

MUST BE FOUND. The quality which makes a difference between people of equal natural opportunities, in about nine cases out of ten, is the difference in their ability to read understandIngly. Young people read little — some not at all—not even the daily papers. Their time is taken up with activities so that they have no time for reading—that is, they think they have no time for reading. As a matter of fact, if the time which they consume in entertaining themselves, if but a fraction, were given to a systematic course of reading, in after-life it would make the difference between the really educated and contented person, and the failure and the discontented.

Reading is much more than the simple word implies. The ability to understand the definition of words is one thing, and the ability to know what they represent is quite another. Many readers are nothing but bookworms, and are unable to use the facts which they acquire by reading. Right here the Balanced Activities, of which I have preached so much, come in. Reading should not take the place of action; indeed, 1-. cannot take the place of action. But where we have action without reading and study, much is lost which could be systematised and arranged in the mind in better condition for use when required. If you have failed to get the reading habit, acquire it while you may. If you do not, you lose one of the important factors of a really full life. Reading gives us the experiences of others, which we may thus add to our own experiences. The non-reading human is necessarily ignorant as compared with the reader of equal activity. If y° u question this statement, “look ’em over,” as they sometimes tell the umpire at a baseball game. You can pretty nearly pick out the readers by their inclination and ability to actually accomplish.

Reading and study, which are, or should be, one and the same thing, as we should not read without studying, differentiates the man of progress. —Maidson Cooper, in Flower Grower.