But to read with the most advantage one ought to have within easy reach a dictionary, an atlas and, if possible, an encyclopedia. Then you can read with profit, and the mere outlines which the newspaper gives can be filled up by reference to books which give more or less complete histories. The political articles which appear in the height of a campaign are hardly worth reading, unless you think of entering politics as a money-making business, which I sincerely hope none of you think of doing. And I am sure that the full accounts of crime, and especially the details of police reports and criminal trials, you will do well to pass by and not read. I really believe that a familiarity with these details prepares the way, in many instances, for the commission of crime, just as the reading of accounts of suicide sometimes leads to the act itself. Some of the best minds in our country, and in the world, are now employed in writing for the periodicals and magazines. No one can be well informed without reading something of the vast amount of matter which is thus poured out before him. I have not named the newspapers nor the magazines which you may read with the most profit; but your teachers can advise you what to read. Rather is it important for you to know what _not_ to read. Many of the most popular and the most useful books that have been published within the last quarter of a century have appeared first in the pages of a weekly or monthly paper. The best thoughts of the best thinkers sometimes first see the light in such pages. Besides the newspaper and the literary magazine, there are scientific periodicals, which are of essential value to a worker who wishes to be well informed in any of the mechanical arts. The _Scientific American_ is, perhaps, the best of this class, both in the beauty of its illustrations and in the high quality of its contributions. The _Popular Science Monthly_ is a periodical of a wider range and more diversified character. These periodicals, if you are not able to subscribe for them as individuals or in clubs, you may find in the public library. But let me urge you to turn away from “dime novels.” Not because they are cheap, but because they are often unwholesome and immoral. The vile, fiery, poisonous whiskey which so many wretched creatures drink until the coatings of the stomach are destroyed, and the brain is on fire, is no more fatal to the health and life, than is the immoral literature I speak of, to the mind and soul of him who reads. There is an abundance of good literature that is cheap――do not read the bad.