Books are for reading,but man must bring to his reading a desire to learn and a power to absorb. Reading should be active,not passive. When students first go to a library,they may be at a loss about what to read with all the different subjects available. Bacon tells you to"look at weak places in your armour",and shows you how to fill the blanks in your knowledge. On the other hand,(1)_________________. Knowledge in itself is often useless. A mind filled with too much knowledge is like a room too full of furniture; a man cannot walk about freely in it,or look out the windows. It is much better to concentrate on a few subjects which interest you and to deal lightly with (2)_______________. like a silly tourist going through a museum and not missing a single object. If you try to master every subject you may become very wise,but you will be very lonely and you will probably lose all your friends. So you must learn to pick and choose,and you must also learn to look here and (3)_________________. If you watch him eating,you will see that although he is supposed to be one of the most stupid animals in the world, he has at least one of the qualities of the cultured man,the power to pick and choose. A student looking for mental food in the library should use the camel as his model.
