Understanding
After reading comes understanding. To illustrate this, poetry again might be cited, for any one can read poetry, though many declare they cannot understand it. The simplest looking prose may be obscure to the mind which is slow in comprehending. When we read we get general ideas, cursory impressions; we catch the drift of the author's meaning. Reading for material must be more thorough than that. It must not merely believe it understands; it must preclude the slightest possibility of misunderstanding.
A reader who finds in a printed speech approval of a system of representation but a condemnation of a system of representatives must grasp at once, or must work out for himself, the difference between these two: the first meaning a relationship only, the second meaning men serving as delegates. When he meets an unusual word like mandatory, he must not be content to guess at its significance by linking it with command and mandate, for as used in international affairs it means something quite definite.
"To secure this complete understanding of all his reading he will consult consistently every book of reference"
To secure this complete understanding of all his reading he will consult consistently every book of reference. He should read with a good dictionary at his elbow, and an atlas and an encyclopedia within easy reach. If he is able to talk over with others what he reads, explaining to them what is not clear, he will have an excellent method of testing his own understanding. The old-fashioned practice of "saying lessons over" at home contributed to this growth of a pupil's understanding.