Samuel Smiles Self Help

I am still reading the book 'Self Help' (first published in 1859) by Samuel Smiles. I am three chapters in and am reading the brief biographies of the potters cited as models of behaviour by Smiles.

In this age of the internet it is so easy to forget even going to a public library to find things out was for these men (who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries) an impossibility. If you wanted to know something you trained with a master or learnt by trial and error.

Now we have Wikipedia and look how lazy that has made us, often we don't even bother lifting up a book (me included!) to find something out.

Truly the world has changed a great deal in 200 years. Knowledge is pervasive but I'm not sure about the desire to make use of it.