"The great value of the book lies not in prescribing courses of reading, but in a discussion of principles, which lie at the foundation of all valuable systematic reading."--_The Christian Standard._
"Young people who wish to know what to read and how to read it, or how to pursue a particular course of reading, cannot do better than begin with this book, which is a practical guide to the whole domain of literature, and is full of wise suggestions for the improvement of the mind."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._
"President Porter himself treats of all the leading departments of literature of course with abundant knowledge, and with what is of equal importance to him, with a very definite and serious purpose to be of service to inexperienced readers. There is no better or more interesting book of its kind now within their reach."--_Boston Advertiser._
"President Noah Porter's 'Books and Reading' is far the most practical and satisfactory treatise on the subject that has been published. It not only answers the questions 'What books shall I read?' and 'How shall I read them?' but it supplies a large and well-arranged catalogue under appropriate heads, sufficient for a large family or a small public library."--_Boston Zion's Herald._
[**asterism]_For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, by_ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, 743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
One Volume, crown 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00.
"_As you read of the fair knights and the foul knights--for Froissart tells of both--it cannot but occur to you that somehow it seems harder to be a good knight now-a-days than it was then.... Nevertheless the same qualities which made a manful fighter then, make one now. To speak the very truth, to perform a promise to the utmost, to reverence all women, to maintain right and honesty, to help the weak; to treat high and low with courtesy, to be constant to one love, to be fair to a bitter foe, to despise luxury, to pursue simplicity, modesty and gentleness in heart and bearing, this was in the oath of the young knight who took the stroke upon him in the fourteenth century, and this is still the way to win love and glory in the nineteenth._"--EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE.