I am of the opinion, however, that anyone who can learn from life can also learn from books without spoiling his mind. There is a difference between learning from books and merely learning to repeat passages from them, and I had thought that in really learning from books one was learning from life. Whether one can get more information from books than from things depends somewhat on the books, also what it is one wishes to learn, as well as one’s capacity to learn. Manipulation of objects--doing--has no more educational value than repeating words. Either may become a mere routine exercise. Education is the organization of knowledge into human excellence. It is not the mere possession of knowledge, but the ability to reflect upon it and grow in wisdom. It would seem that as few people acquire wisdom from practical experience as from books. The high-school educated multitude, which prefers the radio to reading, finds the tales of classic literature tedious except when presented in the “movies,” reads history only in outline, and natural science only when popularized in a series of ABC books, is probably correct in its feeling that books cannot teach it much; and what it is learning from life is manifest in the sort of life it lives. The habit of reading good books, ability to know the good ones from the inferior, capacity to enjoy books for the beauty and wisdom that may be found in them, are essential parts of a liberal education. A school that implants good habits of discriminating reading in its students is a good school. One that fails to do this is a bad school. The modern educational system has taught the public to read,--and the public reads mostly trash.