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PREJUDICE AGAINST STUDYING BOOKS.
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There is a silly prejudice in some quarters against engineers applying to books for information respecting their engines. Engineers are numerous who boast noisily that all their knowledge is derived from actual experience, and they despise theorists who study books, drawings, or models in acquiring particulars concerning the construction or operation of the locomotive parts. Such men have nothing to boast of. They never learn much, because ignorant egotism keeps them blind. They keep the ranks of the mere stopper and starter well filled.
THE KIND OF KNOWLEDGE GAINED FROM BOOKS.
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The books on mechanical practice which these ultra practical men despise, contain in condensed form the experience and discoveries that have been gleaned from the hardest workers and thinkers of past ages. The product of long years of toilful experiment, where intense thought has furrowed expansive brows, and weary watching has whitened raven locks, is often recorded on a few pages. A mechanical fact which an experimenter has spent years in discovering and elucidating, can be learned and tested by a student in as many hours. The man who despises book-knowledge relating to any calling or profession, rejects the wisdom begotten of former recorded labor.