The reader's guide to the Encyclopaedia Britannica : A handbook containing…
Part 6 is an analysis of the many departments of the Britannica which
relate to recreation and vacations, travel at home and abroad,
photography, motoring, out-door and indoor games and other forms of
relaxation and of exercise. The extent to which the work can be used in
planning motoring tours, and the superiority, in such a connection, of
its articles to the scant information found in ordinary guide books, are
shown in the extracts, included in this Part 6, relating to a trip from
New York through the Berkshire Hills to the White Mountains.
It will be seen from this brief survey of the field covered by the Guide
that provision has been made for every purpose which can dictate the
choice of a course of reading. But as you proceed to examine its
contents for yourself, you should remember that the lists it gives name
only a fraction of the articles in the Britannica, and that for a fuller
summary of the work as a whole you should turn to the Table on pp.
881–947 of Vol. 29.
Finally, the form in which this Guide is printed may call for a word of
justification. It is inevitable that chapters, of an analytical
character, bespattered with references to the numbers of volumes and of
pages, and terminating with lists of the titles of articles, should bear
a certain air of formality. There is no danger that the possessor of the
Britannica, familiar with the fascination of its pages and the beauty of
the illustrations which enhance their charm would permit his impression
of the work itself to be affected by the bleak appearance of the Guide.
But he may feel that because a list has a forbidding aspect the pleasure
he has derived from browsing at will in the Britannica would give place
to a sense of constraint if he rigidly pursued a course of reading. It
may easily be shown that such a fear would be groundless, for the
Britannica articles are all the better reading when one carries forward
the interest which one of them has excited to others of related
attraction. But to anyone who is firmly determined that he shall not be
persuaded to read systematically, the Guide will none the less be
useful, for he may flit from one chapter to another, selecting here and
there an article merely because the account which is given of it pleases
him. Or, better yet, he may find, in one portion only of a selected
course, a series of only three or four articles which will, in
combination, make the best of occasional reading.
THE EDITORS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS