Information and discipline may be drawn from other sources, but that culture which means the enrichment and unfolding of a man's self is largely developed by familiarity with those ultimate conclusions of man about himself which are the deposit of all that he has thought, suffered, wrought, and been,--those deep deposits of truth silently formed in the heart of the race in the long and painful working out of its life, its character, and its destiny.
For these rich interpretations we must turn to art, and especially to the art of literature; and in literature we must turn especially to the small group of works which, by reason of the adequacy with which they convey and illustrate these interpretations, hold the first places,--the books of life.
The man who would get the ripest culture from books ought to read many, but there are a few books which he must read; among them, first and foremost, are the Bible, and the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe.

These are the supreme books of life as distinguished from the books of knowledge and skill.

They hold their places because they combine in the highest degree vitality, truth, power, and beauty.

They are the central reservoirs into which the rivulets of individual experience over a vast surface have been gathered; they are the most complete revelations of what life has brought and has been to the leading races; they bring us into contact with the heart and soul of humanity.

They not only convey information, and, rightly used, impart discipline, but they transmit life.