Reading The World: Ideas That Matter

READING THE WORLD o READING THE WORLD Ideas That Matter o THIRD EDITION MICHAEL AUSTIN B W . W . N O R T O N N E W Y O R K & C O M P A N Y L O N D O N W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees. Editor: Marilyn Moller Associate Editor: Ariella Foss Editorial Assistant: Claire Wallace Project Editor: Caitlin Moran Marketing Manager: Lib Triplett Emedia Editor: Cliff Landesman Production Manager: Andy Ensor Permissions Manager: Megan Jackson Text Designer: Jo Anne Metsch Art Researcher: Trish Marx Managing Editor, College: Marian Johnson Associate Managing Editor, College: Rebecca Homiski Composition: Cenveo® Publisher Services Manufacturing: Quad / Graphics—Fairfield, PA Copyright © 2015, 2010, 2007 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reading the world: ideas that matter / edited by Michael Austin.—Third edition pages cm—(Third edition). Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-393-93630-8 (pbk.) 1. College readers. 2. English language—Rhetoric—Problems, exercises, etc. 3. Critical thinking—Problems, exercises, etc. I. Austin, Michael, 1966 II. Title PE1417.R396 2015 808’.0427—dc23 20140338120 Instructor’s Edition ISBN: 978-0-393-93845-6 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110 www.wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company, Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT 1234567890 Contents o Preface x v Timeline x x i Pronunciation Guide x x vi i PA RT 1 R E A D I N G T H E W O RLD 1 ED U C AT IO N 3 HSÜN TZU Encouraging Learning 5 To pursue [learning] is to be a man, to give it up is to become a beast. SENECA On Liberal and Vocational Studies 1 3 I have no respect for any study whatsoever if its end is the making of money. * LAURENTIUS DE VOLTOLINA Liber Ethicorum des Henricus de Alemania 21 A painting of a class lecture at one of the medieval world’s most famous universities. FREDERICK DOUGLASS Learning to Read 2 4 I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN from Knowledge Its Own End 3 1 Knowledge is capable of being its own end. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward. RABINDRANATH TAGORE To Teachers 4 0 In this critical peri