There are guys who try to read all detective stories or all science fiction. Well, it's better than not reading at all! But you just need to become a connoisseur of such books: to be able to distinguish the best from the worst, to single out your favorite author, to understand books with knowledge. Each branch of literature has your classics. If you love science fiction, but have not read Jules Verne, Lem, Efremov or the Strugatsky brothers and do not single out their books, then what kind of connoisseur are you?

To be an expert in something is a great joy. Whoever finds a way to become a connoisseur, who is able to tell how he gradually became a connoisseur, what books he has read, will be of great benefit to all followers of the idea of teaching with enthusiasm. We are waiting for scientific reports!

And one more experience, a very subtle one. We all have friends who don't really like to read. You can set yourself the following task: to infect at least one person with a love of reading! It is difficult to say how to do this, there are no general recipes, and scientists have not yet studied this problem. So, you need to find your own ways, show your own cunning... But there will be a friend with whom you can exchange books and talk about books. Life will become much more interesting!

* * *

And now, since this is the last series of experiments and the book is coming to an end, a few very serious words.

The whole life that surrounds us tunes us to learning, makes us learn and calls us to learn. But, as always happens, there are also things that repel you from learning. For example, in the classroom there may be a general bad attitude to lessons, mocking, frivolous, and a person succumbs to this mood. He wants to be "like everyone else." Some children are repelled from learning precisely because their parents force them to study, and they, the guys, do not want to look like "pie-boys" and "pie-girls", they want to be "independent" and therefore stop learning. It happens that someone inspires us: "Why study? I didn't study, but I live well." Finally, some children do not cope with learning so much that they despair, give up trying to break away from all the "enchanted circles" of the school, and at the same time, of course, persuade themselves: "It's okay, I'll live like this."

In short, there are many influences that prevent us from learning.

The first thing to do is to free oneself, to free oneself completely from everything that hinders learning, from all these influences and one's own prejudices. To give in to such suggestions, no matter who they come from, means to fall into the worst slavery imaginable, to become an unfree, dependent person.

Chekhov, in his wonderful story "The Steppe", tells about a little boy who is sent to the city to study. On the way, he met an old peasant named Pantelei...

«— Ты куда же едешь? — спросил он, притопывая ногами.

— Учиться, — ответил Егорушка.

— Учиться? Ага… Ну, помогай царица небесная. Так. Ум хорошо, а два лучше. Одному человеку бог один ум даёт, а другому два ума, а иному и три… Иному три, это верно… Один ум, с каким мать родила, другой от учения, а третий от хорошей жизни. Так вот, братуша, хорошо, ежели у которого человека три ума».

Хорошо…

Один ум нам дан от природы; хорошую жизнь — и ум вместе с нею — мы добываем вместе, общими стараниями, для всего народа. А ум от учения каждому приходится добывать самому, в нелёгкой работе, много лет подряд, преодолевая трудности, побеждая неприятности… Что ж! Двадцать пять веков назад сказал это один из мудрейших писателей мира, Софокл: