6 MAY 1943, Page 22

How to Read a Page. By I. A. Richards. (Kegan

Paul. ros. 6d.) EVER since the discovery that words have different meanings has been called Semantics, no effort seems to have been spared for their obfuscation, and Mr. Richards here makes a contribution on behalf of what he calls " Efficient Reading." As a treatise, it conforms _admirably to the standard of the Herr Professor who laid it down, Es muss Etwas Dunkel Sein, but how far it will prove an inspiration to the study of words is more open to question. " All our thinking is a pars of the process as affecting the way we will on some occa- sion take some sentence." This may be " scientific," but it is not the fine adventure that was philological exploration with Weekley, or Trench's shared scholarship, or a brilliant gloss by Fowler on the snobberies of the Higher Grammar.