Real literature is something much better than a harmless instrument for getting through idle hours. The purpose of great literature is to help us to develop into full human beings. ¶ There exists no guarantee that such books as I have suggested above will bring us material success or earthly power. Yet such reading will teach us about what it is to be a real man or a real woman. Of this we may be certain, that when the wisdom derived from high imaginative literature is ignored, order in the soul and order in the commonwealth are crumbling.