Acquirements of Amanuenses.

BY KENDRICK C. HILL, 117 Duane Street, New York.

CHAPTER III.

READY REFERENCE.

Of a ready mind.-Holy Bible.

R

EADY REFERENCE is the greatest time-saver and timeaider.

Time is an inestimable, incomparable recource, so regarded by those who succeed, but woefully wasted by those who are failing. The greatest possession is time, for it is life, and all have this great possession.

We should not only aim to attain that knowledge which is useful, but it should be alphabetical in arrangement and adapted for ready reference; in other words, our minds should be so indexed that the contents thereof might not be hidden treasures of no practical use, but always accessible on a moment's notice and thereby of much value.

Ready Reference always has been recognized as an important factor in all departments of knowledge and human activity, but never so much as to-day. Time is so vastly more valuable now than of old, for we are no longer plodding pilgrims, but active doers-we travel by minutes and not by days --we live lightning lives, move by electricity, and have our being daily in a sphere, the scope of which is the whole wide world. The contrast is most marked between the time of the stage-coach, the courier and going afoot, and these times when everything is done by "special delivery," be it our letters, our persons, or our goods.

NUMBER I.

Books of ready reference only are sought after by practical people of the present-e. g., Little's "Historical Lights," 741 pages, index 216 pages; Hoyt-Ward "Cyclopædia of Practical Quotations," 634 pages, index 265 pages.

Although the Encyclopædia Britannica is alphabetically arranged, there is an index in the back of each of the twenty-four volumes, and the twenty-fifth volume comprises a general index of 991 pages. This is to enable a person to find whatever may be wanted, and to find it quickly. What a lesson it suggests and teaches!

From this I observe that many men are but books of ready reference, human encyclopædias, as it were, of knowledge and vast information; not merely men who know much, but from whom only little can be gained, but living books, copiously indexed (with cross references and all that), which may be leafed over and over, from A to Z, with the gratifying result of securing whatever information may be desired. They are useful human volumes, bound within the lids of human life. Such men succeed and do not live in vain. In fact, the present age has no use for a person who is not ready, and who, when referred to and leafed over and consulted, cannot meet the requirements of the occasion then and there. It is now or