[m]ost Of Our Daily News Is Inert,

Textbooks, It Seems To Me, Are Enemies Of Education, Instruments For Promoting Dogmatism And Trivial Learning. They May Save The Teacher Some Trouble, But The Trouble They Inflict On The Minds Of Students Is A Blight And A Curse.

It Is A Mistake To Suppose That Any Technological Innovation Has A One-sided Effect. Every Technology Is Both A Burden And A Blessing; Not Either-or, But This-and-that.

Our Priests And Presidents, Our Surgeons And Lawyers, Our Educators And Newscasters Need Worry Less About Satisfying The Demands Of Their Discipline Than The Demands Of Good Showmanship.

It Is Not Necessary To Conceal Anything From A Public Insensible To Contradiction And Narcotized By Technological Diversions.

The Reader Must Come Armed , In A Serious State Of Intellectual Readiness. This Is Not Easy Because He Comes To The Text Alone. In Reading, One's Responses Are Isolated, One'sintellect Thrown Back On Its Own Resourses. To Be Confronted By The Cold Abstractions Of Printed Sentences Is To Look Upon Language Bare, Without The Assistance Of Either Beauty Or Community. Thus, Reading Is By Its Nature A Serious Business. It Is Also, Of Course, An Essentially Rational Activity.