The idea of the Harvard Classics was introduced in various speeches by then President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University. Several years prior to 1909, Eliot gave a speech in which he remarked that a three-foot shelf would be sufficient to hold a enough books to give a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion. He was inundated with requests for the list of those book titles that would fill the three-foot shelf. After numerous attempts to support his initial claim, he decided that the shelf would need to be lengthened to five feet
"My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books. The purpose of The Harvard Classics is, therefore, one different from that of collections in which the editor's aim has been to select a number of best books; it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world's thought that the observant reader's mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized. Within the limits of fifty volumes, containing about twenty-three thousand pages, my task was to provide the means of obtaining such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as seemed essential to the twentieth-century idea of a cultivated man. The best acquisition of a cultivated man is a liberal frame of mind or way of thinking; but there must be added to that possession acquaintance with the prodigious store of recorded discoveries, experiences, and reflections which humanity in its intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization has acquired and laid up."
“Before the reading plan represented by The Harvard Classics had taken definite form, I had more than once stated in public that in my opinion a five-foot—at first a three-foot—shelf would hold books enough to afford a good substitute for a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading."
Just go to the day, and read.
The idea of the Harvard Classics was introduced in various speeches by then President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University. Several years prior to 1909, Eliot gave a speech in which he remarked that a three-foot shelf would be sufficient to hold a enough books to give a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion. He was inundated with requests for the list of those book titles that would fill the three-foot shelf. After numerous attempts to support his initial claim, he decided that the shelf would need to be lengthened to five feet
"My aim was not to select the best fifty, or best hundred, books in the world, but to give, in twenty-three thousand pages or thereabouts, a picture of the progress of the human race within historical times, so far as that progress can be depicted in books. The purpose of The Harvard Classics is, therefore, one different from that of collections in which the editor's aim has been to select a number of best books; it is nothing less than the purpose to present so ample and characteristic a record of the stream of the world's thought that the observant reader's mind shall be enriched, refined and fertilized. Within the limits of fifty volumes, containing about twenty-three thousand pages, my task was to provide the means of obtaining such knowledge of ancient and modern literature as seemed essential to the twentieth-century idea of a cultivated man. The best acquisition of a cultivated man is a liberal frame of mind or way of thinking; but there must be added to that possession acquaintance with the prodigious store of recorded discoveries, experiences, and reflections which humanity in its intermittent and irregular progress from barbarism to civilization has acquired and laid up."
“Before the reading plan represented by The Harvard Classics had taken definite form, I had more than once stated in public that in my opinion a five-foot—at first a three-foot—shelf would hold books enough to afford a good substitute for a liberal education to anyone who would read them with devotion, even if he could spare but fifteen minutes a day for reading."
[Daily reading guide.](https://www.mensetmanus.net/inspiration/fifteen_minutes_a_day/index.shtml) Just go to the day, and read.
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