10 Ways to Improve Your Mind by Reading the Classics.
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“I cannot live without books” Thomas Jefferson once said. No one should live without books! Books uplift. Books inspire. Books teach. The teaching done through books encompasses many areas: vocabulary, life experiences, knowledge, learning, and the list goes on and on. There is no doubt that books are important.
The other day I came across some disturbing statistics on reading. According to a Jenkins Group survey, 42% of college graduates will never read another book. Since most people read bestsellers printed in the past 10 years, it follows that virtually no one is reading the classics. Although it’s unfortunate that the intellectual heritage of humanity is being forgotten we can use this to our benefit. By reading the classics to improve your mind you can give yourself an advantage.
A library is, according to Webster’s Dictionary, “A place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale.” A Family Library is more than just a collection of books that a family accumulates. A family library is a library of books that a family accumulates for themselves and their posterity. Great care should go into the collecting of books for this library, because the family knows the worth of such a library. Many great men in history had their own extensive family libraries. Thomas Jefferson sold his collection of 6, 487 books to re-start the library of congress. That is an admirably sized library!
These examples illustrate 10 ways reading the classics will help you succeed.
1. Bigger Vocabulary.
When reading the classics you’ll come across many words that are no longer commonly used. Why learn words most people don’t use? To set yourself apart. Having a bigger vocabulary is like having a tool box with more tools. A larger arsenal of words enables you to express yourself more eloquently. You’ll be able to communicate with precision and create a perception of higher intelligence that will give you an advantage in work and social situations.
2. Improved Writing Ability.
Why go through the expense and trouble of creating your own family library? There are many reasons, but I only plan to include the more important ones.
Reading the classics is the easiest way to improve your writing. While reading you unconsciously absorb the grammar and style of the author. Why not learn from the best? Great authors have a tendency to take over your mind. After reading, I’ve observed that my thoughts begin to mirror the writer’s style. This influence carries over to writing, helping form clear, rhythmic sentences.
The first reason is so that you and your family are always learning. “It is a great mistake to think that education is finished when young people leave school. Education is never finished.” Mrs. Child in The Mother’s Book.
3. Improved Speaking Ability.
Becoming a better speaker accompanies becoming a better writer because both are caused by becoming a better thinker. Studying works of genius will teach you to express yourself with clarity and style. By improving your command of the English language, you’ll become more persuasive, sound more intelligent, and enjoy an advantage over less articulate people.
I have been homeschooling my children using the philosophy of A Thomas Jefferson Education inspired by Oliver Van DeMille, Founder and President of George Wythe College . This philosophy of learning is based on the reading of classic books. Clifton Fadiman said, “When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before.” Classic books also make you smarter and wiser! The wisdom comes in the examples in the lives of the protagonists. You see consequences to choices made- whether good or bad. Classic books are not ashamed about including God, morals and good values in the text and influences of the story.
4. Fresh Ideas.
Isn’t it ironic that the best source for new ideas are writers who’ve been dead for centuries? I’ve derived some of my best ideas directly from the classics. It makes sense when you consider the competition. Everyone you know is reading the same popular blogs and bestselling books. Observing the same ideas as everyone else leads to generic and repetitive thinking. No wonder it’s difficult to sound original! By looking to the classics for inspiration you can enhance your creativity and find fresh subject matter.
5. Historical Perspective.
I could argue this point myself, but why bother if Einstein has already done it?
“It is within our power to guide our youth in their reading and to cultivate in their hearts a desire for good books. It is most unfortunate where a person is not possessed with the desire for good reading. The reading habit, like charity, should begin at home.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 3, pp. 203-4).
Somebody who reads only newspapers and at best the books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely nearsighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.
There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind.
Nothing is more needed than to overcome the modernist’s snobbishness.
Carefully Choosing Literature. It is important to understand the worth of a good book when you are deciding what books to add to our family’s library. Just as in movies and other influences in our lives they can affect our thoughts and choices. They can affect whether or not we improve our minds and lives or remain stagnant.
6. Educational Entertainment.
Reading great books is fun. The key is getting past the initial vocabulary barrier. It’s actually less difficult than you think. Even challenging authors use a limited vocabulary. After the initial learning curve, you’ll find the classics as readable as modern books and infinitely more stimulating. Classics have endured because of entertainment value. There’s a reason filmmakers keep remaking old books — they have the best content.
Inappropriate literature has always been around. What concerns me is how deceptively modern political agendas, sin and other filth are creeping into literature even for the youngest people; and how they are becoming so widely accepted. They are now found in school and public libraries. Sadly, many people today believe that it’s okay to make allowances here and there. Some don’t even know what is in the literature that their children are reading. Now is the time to make a change. It is important to be careful about what we read.
7. Sophistication.
If you’d like to excel in conversation, knowledge of the classics is essential. These are books that keep coming up. They’re a part of human history that isn’t going to disappear in 10 years like 99% of books on the bestsellers list. By reading the classics you gain a deeper appreciation of ideas generally taken for granted. Plus quoting Aristotle or Voltaire is a great way to win an argument.
8. More Efficient Reading.
There is no question that books do something to us. Some works of art can lift our spirits and ennoble us, while other works can degrade and debase us—or they can affect us at any number of points between those extremes, for literature is seldom simply good or bad…
I just finished reading The Road by Cormac MacCarthy. It’s so good that it won the Pulitzer Prize. Afterwards I read the first few chapters of Lolita. I was shocked by Lolita’s superiority. Truly great books don’t come around every year. If you only read contemporary literature, you’re drawing from a diluted pool. Why not make the most of your reading time by finding the best of the best?
Reaching a solution through the Spirit, it seems to me, leads us to realize that because life and time are short, we will be able to read only a few thousand books in our lifetimes. When we pick any book, we are ruling out hundreds and thousands of other books. How important it is, then, to choose time-proven great books that will foster the Holy Spirit and enable us to rise to greater levels of truth and beauty and insight and understanding and, hence, spirituality. Many great men and women have found that a steady, systematic approach to literature has enabled them to fill their beings, in a lifetime of good reading, with the great thoughts of men and women of all the ages, for through reading great books we are put in touch with the great minds of all time, and we become their spiritual and intellectual heirs.
9. Develop a Distinct Voice.
If you’re a writer/blogger, ignoring the classics is a mistake. This has nothing to do with subject matter. Regardless of what you write about, you need to be persuasive and develop a distinct voice. The best way to learn is from the masters. I’ve seen several articles recommend examples of good writing — they’ve all been other blogs. I have a feeling most people reading this article already read enough blogs. Spending some time with the classics will give you an edge.
10. Learn Timeless Ideas.
We like to believe, in our modern arrogance, that technology has changed everything. In truth, it feels the same to be alive today as it did a thousand years ago.
Mrs. Child, author of The Mother’s Book (1831) who wrote the following, “With regard to the kind of books that are read, great precaution should be used. No doubt the destiny of individuals has very often been decided by volumes accidentally picked up and eagerly devoured at a period of life when every new impression is powerful and abiding. For this reason, parents, or some guardian friends, should carefully examine every volume they put into the hands of young people.” By creating our own family library of good, wholesome books we can be careful what goes into the minds of our family members.
The lessons of the classics carry as much weight as ever. They contain information that is directly applicable to your life. Don’t believe me? Try reading Ben Franklin’s Autobiography without learning something. Reading the classics develops an understanding of the human condition and a deeper appreciation of modern problems.
In closing, I’d like to briefly anticipate criticism. This is not an attack on everything modern. To read nothing but the classics would be as foolish as completely ignoring them. The aim is to combine the wisdom of the past with the innovation of the future. The two are inextricably linked — the best books are yet to be written.
“It is the duty of every parent to provide in his home a library of suitable books to be at the service of the family. The library need not be large, nor the books of the most expensive binding, but there should be a well chosen variety of the most select that can be obtained.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 3, pp. 203-4)… [read more]
Also, this is not an appeal to snobbery. Quite the opposite. Reading the classics is a cheap hobby. Used copies can be borrowed from the library or purchased for 1/20 the cost of trendy books that are the talk of high society. Please stop associating the classics with your English Lit. Professor.
Source: www.pickthebrain.com
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