Explanations:
Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. (Para-15)
Answer: This sentence occurs in "The American Scholar” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The writer pinpoints the use and abuse of books in connection with the genius of the American scholar.
The American scholar should make the best use of books. It means that books of the masterminds of the past should not make him a mere recipient of their thoughts and ideas. Books originated from the thoughts of men of genius of the past who brooded over nature and recorded their thoughts and feelings and ideas in their books. They received the world around them into themselves and gave new arrangements of things in their minds. Nature came into them short-lived actions, and went out of them immortal thoughts. It came to the business and went from the poetry. The best use of the books by the scholar should not be to receive the thoughts of the great authors of the past passively. Meek seekers of knowledge grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views of great geniuses of the past like Cicero, Locke, and Bacon. Such men are bookworms. They are the book-learned class. They value books as such, not as related to Nature and the human constitution.
But the best use of books is not like that. Books must be used only as a source of inspiration. The soul of the real scholar is an active soul. It sees absolute truth, utters truth, and creates. The American scholar should use books in the best way; to have inspiration from them. He is the man thinking. He must not be subdued by books. He should read God directly, instead of wasting his precious time on other men's transcripts. He should accept only the best things in the books, and reject all the rest.
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