"Hugh [of St. Victor] begins [the Didascalicon], attractively enough, by rejecting intellectual snobbery: 'I myself never looked down on anything that had to do with education, but. . . often learned many things that seemed to others to be a sort of joke or just nonsense.' He commends this attitude to other readers, chiefly because people who begin by occupying their minds with small and trivial things can use what they know as a foundation, or a stepping stone, that allows them to ascend to higher things. The person just beginning to bring some discipline to his or her life as a reader need not be ashamed at reading non-masterpieces, or at only being able to focus on reading a few pages at a time. Let that person, then, begin with short stories or essays and work toward longer works that demand extensive attention. Indeed, it's vital as a reader to move forward in an orderly way (ordinate procedere debet): 'the man who moves along step by step is the man who moves along best, not like some who fall head over heels when they wish to make a great leap ahead.'
Furthermore, Hugh says, the reader who makes progress in these matters should beware of the dangers of prideâthe source of intellectual snobberyâbecause pride can cause you to look down on other readers and simultaneously prevent you from striving toward greater skill and knowledge. Hugh, though he doesn't use this particular terminology in the Didascalicon, shared the common medieval belief that human life is a pilgrimage, and each human person is a viator, a wayfarer: wayfarers know where they are going, and remain in motion, but also know that they haven't arrived. There is therefore no cause for arrogance toward others who walk the same path: we're all moving 'step by step,' in an orderly way. On these grounds Hugh particularly insists that the student of reading cultivate the virtue of humility: 'For the reader there are three lessons taught by humility that are particularly important: First, that he hold no knowledge or writing whatsoever in contempt. Second, that he not blush to learn from any man. Third, that when he has attained learning himself, he not look down upon anyone else.' Armed with this humility, the reader can safely pursue the wisdom to be gained from reading; the reader can become a true student."
â Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction