How to Do It

Hale, Edward Everett, 1822-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 272K words
Chapters: 28

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.How to Do It by Edward Everett HaleAuthor: Hale, Edward Everett, 1822-1909,Language: English, Class: BJ: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Ethics, Social usages, Etiquette, Religion, Release Date: Sep 1, 2005

Editor's review

How to Do It is a collection of essays by the nineteenth-century American writer Edward Everett Hale, classified under ethics, social etiquette, and religion. It does not offer an operational guide in the modern sense; rather, it discusses, in a gently reasoned manner, how people should face the responsibilities of daily life, form habits, and conduct themselves in personal relations. Hale, a clergyman and writer, adopts a homiletic, exhortatory tone, drawing most of his examples from everyday experience. The book is thus a useful sample of nineteenth-century American social ethics and of the exhortatory essay as a genre. Many of the pieces began as addresses to young people, which gives them an approachable feel, though both their views and their phrasing bear the clear stamp of their era. Today's readers may take the book as a document in the history of ideas or as moral essays for quiet reading, and should not expect a concrete methodology. The free public-domain e-text makes searching and comparative reading easy, and the book suits anyone interested in Victorian moral essays and English prose who wants something to dip into.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century American moral essays and the exhortatory style
Readers who want to learn about old ideals of social etiquette through an English public-domain book
Learners with good English who enjoy reading discursive prose slowly
Teachers and students who need short exhortatory texts for reading practice

Not a good fit for

Readers looking for a modern practical guide or concrete step-by-step methods
Readers hoping for a plot-driven narrative or literary stories
Readers put off by religious exhortation and outdated attitudes

Reading tips

Start with the table of contents and pick the pieces on daily habits and dealing with others rather than reading straight through.
After each piece, note in your own words the author's central argument and its historical limitations.
Read alongside material on nineteenth-century American social history to understand the context of the exhortatory genre.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a guide that offers concrete methods?

No. Although the title translates literally as "how to do it," the content consists of exhortatory essays on ethics and social etiquette, focused on attitudes and principles rather than step-by-step modern procedures. Readers expecting a how-to manual may be disappointed.

What level of English is needed to read this book?

The original is nineteenth-century English prose, with fairly long sentences and dense argument, so an intermediate or higher reading level is advisable. If your main goal is to understand the content, read one essay through with a dictionary first, then pick up speed once you are used to the author's sentence patterns and vocabulary.

What is it like to read the public-domain e-text?

This edition is a free electronic text released by Project Gutenberg, easy to search, copy, and read across devices, but it usually lacks modern formatting, notes, and an introduction. Readers may supplement it with background material of their own or compare it with an annotated edition.

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About the author

Hale, Edward Everett, 1822-1909 Author

Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) was an American author whose biographical details are limited in the available Chinese sources. The library holds ten of his works, including novels, histories, and story collections, with representative titles such as The Man Without a Country, The Brick Moon, and Other Stories, and The Life of Columbus. His writing often draws on historical events and figures, combining romance with moral concern, and his short stories are clearly structured and plainly narrated. The Man Without a Country is relatively widely known, while The Brick Moon has attracted attention for its early imagination of a satellite-like space station, and The Life of Columbus reflects his historical writing. His varied subjects include patriotism, invention, and holiday stories, and his work has had some influence on American popular literature and early science-fiction imagination.