Invaluable for the Young

Observer, Volume XXIII, Issue 25, 7 March 1903, Page 18

Invaluable for the Young

A lad at school, or a young girl who desires to read intelligently, is fairly entitled to the best means of mental cultivation ; and no work does more to stimulate the habit of independent investigation than does " The Century Dictionary & Cyclopaedia & Atlas." A child learns more from five minutes devoted to independent study than from half-an-hour spent in acquiring knowledge at second hand. As soon as the young people have learnt to use a work of reference for themselves, they begin to possess the power of individual intellectual growth. Children will ase an attractive and richly illustrated work of icference. They need encouragement, and access to "The Century " is the best possible stimulant to their minds. And the " young man " cannot be too young. A lad's success at school, at a university, or in a business house, depends very largely upon his power of rapid and accurate apprehension, and the use of such a york as " The Century " is the best possible stimulus to the mind. The habit of " looking up " doubtful points, of verifying facts, is a. habit easily gained, a habit which, once acquired, is never lost. The 300,000 quotations in " The Century " show how different writers, at different times, have made use of each word. "The Century Dictionary & Cyclopaedia & Atlas lays before the reader the evidences upon which it has founded its suggestions as to the use of the word, and as to the distinction between it and other similar words. It does not lay clown the law. It. shows you how the Eijglish poets, from Chaucer to Kipling, employed the word, how famous divines and orators used the word, it shows you how historians and philosophers and men of science and critics have found various new uses for it, and it leaves you to judge for yourself whether a quotation which illustrates the use of a word in f.uy unusual sense is a sufficient reason for your using it in that sense.