Watts has two short chapters on Books and Reading, containing sensible remarks.  He urges the importance of thorough mastery of select authors; but assumes a power of discriminating good and bad beyond the reach of a learner, and does not show how it is to be attained.  He is very much concerned all through as to the moral tone and religious orthodoxy of the books read, he also reproves hasty and ill-natured judgments upon the authors.

Watts’s Essay is so pithily written, and so full of sense and propriety, that it long maintained a high position in our literature; he tells us, that it had become a text-book in the University.  I do not know of any better work on the same plan.  A “Student’s Guide,” by an American named Todd, was in vogue with us, some time ago; but anyone looking at its contents, will not be sorry that it is now forgotten.  It would not, however, be correct to say that the subject has died out.  If there have not been many express didactic treatises of late, there has been an innumerable host of small dissertations, in the form of addresses, speeches, incidental discussions, leading articles, sermons—­all intended to guide both young and old in the path of useful study.  What to read, when to read, and how to read,—­have been themes of many an essay, texts of many a discourse.  According as Education at large has been more and more discussed, the particular province of self-education, as here marked out, has had an ample share of attention from more or less qualified advisers.

What we have got before us, then, is, first, to define our ground, and then to appropriate and value the accumulated fruits of the labour expended on it.  I have already indicated how I would narrow the subject of Study, so as to occupy a field apart, and not jumble together matters that follow distinct laws.  The theory of Education in general is the theory of good Teaching:  that is a field by itself, although many things in it are applicable also to self-education.  To estimate the values of different acquisitions—­Science, Language, and the rest, is good for all modes of culture.  The laws of the understanding in general, and of the memory in particular, must be taken into account under every mode of acquiring knowledge.  Yet the alteration of circumstances, when a pupil is carving out his own course, and working under his own free-will, leads to new and distinct rules of procedure.  Also, that part of self-education consisting in the application to books is distinct from the other forms of mental cultivation, namely, conversing, disputing, original composition, and tutorial aid.  Each of these has its own rules or methods, which I do not mean to notice except by brief allusion.

In connection with the Plan of study, it is material to ask what the individual is studying for.  Each profession, each accomplishment, has its own course of education.  If book reading is an essential part, then the choice of books must follow the line of the special pursuit.  This is obvious; but does not do away with the consideration of the best modes of studying whatever books are suitable for the end.  One man has to read in Chemistry, another in Law, another in Divinity, and so on.  For each and all of these, there is a profitable and an unprofitable mode of working, and the speciality of the matter is unessential.