Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Canadian Bookman: January, 1919-September, 1921
We make no apology for using the word Bookishness in a favorable sense, to describe something which we believe any nation needs, in due proportion, for its proper intellectual and spiritual development. Canadians have too long contrasted Bookishness and Actuality, Bookishness and Experience, even Bookishness and Business, as if one alone of the two terms had any reference to what is real and important in life. It is time to recall that there is a knowledge, and a highly valuable know ledge, which can only be derived from books, just as there is also a knowledge which can only be derived from experiences and personal contacts, and that the wise man is he who blends these two knowledges in due proportions, not the man who wholly and contemptuously neglects either of them. There is too little Bookishness in Canada. The Printed Book is too small a factor in the life of the Canadian people. There are many communities, of no higher natural intelligence and no sounder average education than our own, in which books exert a more active and widespread influence, and impart a broader culture, than they do in Canada. Into the profounder reasons for this insufficient valuation of the Printed Book we need not enter. They are associated with the youth of the country, its preoccupation with material problems. Its astoundingly rapid development of wealth. They are remedying themselves with the passing of time. But there are a number of contributory causes for our lack of Bookishness, which can and must be combatted before the Book can be raised to its proper place in Canadian life and Cana dian esteem; and it will be the business of the Canadian Book man to examine into these causes and to do all in its power to aid in combatting them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
