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[MAKING ABSTRACTS.]

3.  Making Abstracts.—­This is the plan of studying that most advances our intelligent comprehension of any work of difficulty, and also impresses it on the memory in the best form.  But there are many ways of doing it; and beginners, from the very fact that they are beginners, are not competent to choose the best.  If a book has an obvious and methodical plan in itself, the reader can follow that plan, taking down the leading positions, selecting some of the chief examples or illustrations, giving short headings of chapters and paragraphs, and thus making a synopsis, or full table of contents.  All this is useful.  The memory is much better impressed through the exertion of picking, choosing, and condensing, than by copying verbatim; and the plan or evolution of the whole is more fully comprehended.  But, if a work does not easily lend itself to a methodical abstract, the task of the beginner is much harder.  To abstract the treatises of Aristotle was fitting employment for Hobbes.  The “Wealth of Nations” is not easy to abstract; but, at the present day, it would not be chosen as the Text-book-in-chief for Political Economy:  as a third or fourth work to be perused at a reading pace, it would have its proper effect.  The best studious exercise upon it would be to mark the agreements and disagreements with the newer authority, the weak and strong points of the exposition, and the perennial force of a certain number of the propositions and examples.  Many parts could be skipped entirely as not even repaying historical study.  Yet, as the work of a great and original mind, its interest is perennial.

To go back once more to the example of Thucydides.  Setting aside, from intrinsic improbability, both the traditions—­the copyings, and the committal to memory verbatim,—­we can easily see what Demosthenes could find in the work, and how he could make the most of it.  The narrative or story could be indelibly fixed in his memory by a few perusals, and, if need be, by a full chronology drawn up by his own hand.  The speeches could be committed in whole or in part, for their arguments and language; and a minute study could be made of the turns of expression, as they seemed to be either meritorious or defective.  The young orator had already studied the more finished styles of Isocrates, Lysias, Isanis, and Plato, and could make comparisons between their forms and the peculiarities of Thucydides, which belonged to an earlier age.  This, however, was a discipline altogether apart, and had nothing to do with copying, committing, or abstracting.  It involved one exercise more or less allied to the last, namely, making changes upon an author, according to ones best ideal at the time:  changes, if possible, for the better, but perhaps not; still requiring, however, an effort of mind, and so far favourable to culture.

[VARIOUS MODES OF ABSTRACTING.]