Show I I and S hool l Books BY MARGARET AR E E SANGSTER I am about to confess to yoU Dar Dor Dorothy oth othy a little weakness of mine I cannot endure a book that is covered either with a loose paper protection or a tightly fitting extra garb of any fabric whatever When a new book comes into my bands the first thing I do unless I expect to lend Jend It is to throwaway throw away the pretty outside cover covering covering ing which In these days publishers put nut on new books If I thInk that I Ishall Ishall shall have Ilave occasion to lend the book after a while to a frIend or to a aJ J girl irl neighbor or perhaps to one of you to 10 whom r I am wrIting r I take pains to toI I pr preserve serve the portable cover and I slip it on before belore the book leaves my pos possession session Let me er to yoU that very f few w people love lov th their r books as I love mine and that very few people care care for them as I do In enjoy the beauty of fair type fine paper and choice illustrations and I have a great regard for a beautiful binding I never hold holda a book in hands that are soiled or leave it face downward and on open en on ona ona a chair or table or hand it ov over r to a achild child that It may keep kepp the child quiet I have lent books before now to very velT door dear friends and have had them returned in such a condition of loosened leaves spotted pages stained bindings and degenerate condition gon that I have at once thrown them into the fire and bought others One may really wish to share the pleasure a book gives her with some someone someone one she is fond of and still may hesi hesitate hesitate tate if she is aware that her friend has n never ver learned to treat a book with re for fOl its worth and regard for its cost Take your your school books for instance cc Dorothy They are really charming books From the mechanical point of view a good many people have in invested Invested vested time thought learning and skill in their making In the first place the author spent laborIous months and years in mastering the sUbject of the school text b books and i he toiled over it that he might con condense condense dense a great deal of information into concrete and comp compact ct statement mak making making ing it t Go o simple so lucid and so 30 clear that the beginner In science or litera literature ture could cO comprehend it In a daily task You may fancy that it Is easy to write definitions and formulas and andrules andrules rules In reality nothing in litera literature literature ture is so hard More brains and more conscience and more labor go into the production of a standard school hook book than into the writing of an ethic poem or a novel novelI I saw Rosemond in a fit of vexation toss her arithmetic across tte room to the detriment of the poor book and I felt a Queer little throb of pity for the man who had made that arith arithmetic arithmetic A set of reading books into which have gone specImens of the pest est English literature culled d from many fields is a treasure we well worth a school schoolgirls schoolgirls girls nIcest care Cover your book if you like if It Itis itis is the custom in your our school and the teacher insIsts on your doing so but use the books so well that if they are not covered they may be passed on to other classes or to younger children without having suffered harm Besides the authors who are the creators so to speak of our books there are the pUblishers and the print printers ers and the paper makers and the art artists artists and the people who finally sell the books all of whom have their separate fingers in the pie before It Is ready to sUp slip into your hands When a book is your own where do you ou keep it itT itI T I hope if yoU have your own room that one portion of its furnishings In Includes includes a book shelf When have done with a book put put it in i is s place There are girls who never have a place for anything one of them once once paid me a vIsit and from flom the moment she crossed my threshold until the day she kissed me goodby and went vent mer merrily rily away chaos followed in n her track She left her things aU all over the house and kept her room looking as if it had been swept by a cyclone and as asfor asfor for books she had not the faintest no notion notion tion of their dignity I finally took the precaution of hiding away one or two of these that I most prIzed lest Estelle should ruin them altogether be before before fore she departed I do hope that you have been better started on the road than had been the fortune of this poor child who was as a dear notwithstanding her heedless ways Few girls stop to think that they have a gold mine in their school text textbooks textbooks books They know that theY must devote time and attention to them and that they are the stepping stones to culture A girl would be very stupid who did not appreciate this Beyond this too school books possess something of the value that other ref books do m in After you have left school you may some day be in company with a traveler or an explorer who has seen strange things in the heart of Africa or has ventured Into distant regions in another zone You can converse with him more in intelligently intelligently and get more profit from his fascinating talk than would other otherwise wise be possible if you have hae at your hand a school geography and an atlas aUas You may be reading the daily paper and there you may find that was Is threatened with a foreign country You will turn to your school history and nd learn in a few moments something about that country and Its relations with the rest of the globe You will go back to the newspaper with far greater zest The Thc advantage of the school book over other books Is that as I have alread already sai said it is condensed and clear and it omits superfluous comment on the part of its author and confines Itself to actual facts Of course you are interested in the study of nature This is very popular popular lar at the moment and promises to tobe tobe be more than a passing fad You have the latest botany and the latest zoology among your our books You will find them helpful after awhile as side sidelights sidelights lights on a large and delightful clas clash of books that will tempt you In sprin and summer on excursions out ot of doors door s either to the zoological and rep reptiles tUes tiles or to the wide fields to gath gather r flowers and woo from Nature herself the story of her exquisite secrets Be careful of your orothy Dorothhy w To take admirable care of books so 50 far as the o is concerned is the hallmark halImark or of a lady To know a good deal about the inside of books to re rev them as they deserve and to prize them as the finest treasures money can buy are also hallmarks ot of those who belong to the best classes In civilization Copyright 1906 b by Joseph seph B Bowles |