Every one’s first attempts at abstracting must be very bad.  There is no more opportune occasion for the assistance of a tutor or intelligent monitor, than to revise an abstract.  The weaknesses of a beginner are apparent at a glance; even better than by a viva voce interrogation.  Useful abstracting comes at a late stage of study, when one or two subjects have been pretty well mastered.  It is then that the pupil can best overtake more advanced works on the subjects already commenced, or can enter upon an entirely new department, in the light of previous acquisitions.

Any work that deserves thorough study deserves the labour of making an abstract; without which, indeed, the study is not thorough.  It is quite possible to read so as to comprehend the drift of a book, and yet forget it entirely.  The point for us to consider is—­Are we likely to want any portion of it afterwards?  If we can fix upon the parts most likely to be useful, we either copy or abstract these, or preserve a reference so as to turn them up when wanted.  In the case of a work, containing a mass of new and valuable materials, such as we wish to incorporate with our intellectual structure, we must act the part of the beginner in a new field, and make an abstract on the most approved plan:  that is, by such changes as shall at once preserve the author’s ideas, and intersperse them with our own.  There is an ideal balance of two opposing tendencies:  one to take down the writer too literally, which fails to impress the meaning; the other to accommodate him too much to our own language and thinking, in which case, we shall remember more, but it will be remembering ourselves and not him.  He that can hit the just mean between these extremes is the perfect student.

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There are easier modes of abstracting, such as serve many useful purposes, although not sufficient for the mastery of a leading Text-book, or even of a second or third in a new subject.  We may pencil on the margin, or underscore, all the leading propositions, and the typical examples.  In a well-composed scientific manual, the proceeding is too obvious to be impressive.  Very often, however, the main points are not given in the most methodical way, but have to be searched out by carefully scanning each paragraph.  This is an exercise that both instructs and impresses us; it is the kind of change that calls our faculties into play, and gives us a better hold of an author, without superseding him.

A Table of Contents carefully examined is favourable to a comprehensive view of the whole; and, this attained, the details are remembered in the best possible way, that is, by taking their place in the scheme.  Any other form of recollection is of the desultory kind.

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[LOCKE’S RECOMMENDATIONS.]

4.  Let us next glance at Locke’s method of reading, which is unique and original, like the man himself.  It is given with much iteration in his Conduct of the Understanding, but comes in substance to this:—­