I may add that only books that may properly be called “literature” are here referred to, and even orations are omitted, because they are meant to be heard and not read in a closet and most people will not find them inspiring reading. Neither have I ventured into history, science, philosophy, or economics. I desire to thank Dr. E. Benj. Andrews, Chancellor of the University of Nebraska, Mr. Fred. H. Hild, Librarian of the Chicago Public Library, and Mr. W. I. Fletcher, editor of the American Library Association’s Index to General Literature and Librarian of Amherst College, for valuable assistance in preparing the list of books recommended. SHERWIN CODY. HOW TO READ AND WHAT TO READ _GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF LITERATURE._ The best modern usage restricts the word _literature_ to that which deals with the human heart and emotion, including intellectual emotion. That into which no feeling can enter is not literature. So a pure scientific treatise is not literature; neither is a simple historical record literature, as for example the news in a newspaper. Indeed, all histories, treatises, philosophical works, and textbooks and handbooks are literature only in such cases as an appeal is made to the universal heart or the emotions common to mankind. A little psychology will help us to understand the matter better. The mind has three aspects: the intellectual, which gives us truth; the ethical, which gives us nobility; and the esthetic, which gives us beauty. It is really impossible to separate one of these things from the other entirely; but we may say that in science we have nothing but the intellectual, or truth; in religion nothing but the ethical, or nobility; and in art nothing but the esthetic, or beauty. But as a religion without truth or beauty would be a very poor affair, so art without truth or nobility would be almost inconceivable. Literature is far more than art. Of course literature must be artistic: it must have the esthetic element of beauty; but it must also have both nobility and truth; and it must make its appeal through the emotions, that is, its appeal must be human. Possibly we must admit that all art is human, that its appeal is emotional; but this is not true of all beauty, for a mathematical hyperbola or parabola is perfectly beautiful, and it has its part in all drawing of artistic beauty; but the parabola or hyperbola does not become art except when executed by the human hand in making an appeal to human emotions.