There is something fascinating in the scheme of getting
others to do our intellectual labor for us, to attempt to fill up our
minds as if they were jars. The need of the mind for nutriment is like
the need of the body, but our theory is that it can be satisfied in a
different way. There was an old belief that in order that we should enjoy
food, and that it should perform its function of assimilation, we must
work for it, and that the exertion needed to earn it brought the appetite
that made it profitable to the system. We still have the idea that we
must eat for ourselves, and that we cannot delegate this performance, as
we do the filling of the mind, to some one else. We may have ceased to
relish the act of eating, as we have ceased to relish the act of
studying, but we cannot yet delegate it, even although our power of
digesting food for the body has become almost as feeble as the power of
acquiring and digesting food for the mind.
It is beautiful to witness our reliance upon others. The house may be
full of books, the libraries may be as free and as unstrained of
impurities as city water; but if we wish to read anything or study
anything we resort to a club. We gather together a number of persons of
like capacity with ourselves.
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