"Chained?"
"Yes, indeed," nodded Mr. Cameron. "Books were too precious and rare to risk their being stolen, as they doubtless would have been had they been left about."
"I shouldn't think anybody would have wanted to carry a book big as the dictionary very far."
"But suppose you were very eager to learn to read and never had the chance to lay hands on a book?"
"Oh, that would be different."
"That was the condition most of the persons faced who were not rich enough to purchase books, or have access to them as the scholars in the monasteries had. For at that period of history, you must recall, the Church was the custodian of learning. Priests wrote the books, copied them, had charge of such meager libraries as there were, and taught the people. There were neither schools nor libraries like ours. What wonder that the public was ignorant and illiterate?"
Paul was thoughtful for a moment or two.
"Maybe schools are not such a bad thing, Dad," he remarked, half in fun. "They are dreadfully inconvenient, to be sure, when you want to go and play football; still I guess we are better off with them than we should be without them."
"I reckon you'd think so, were you to try the experiment of being without any," replied Mr. Cameron. "By the way, how is your football team coming on? I have not heard much about it lately."
"I haven't had time to go out with the fellows for any practice work," confessed Paul, "so I am not so well up in what they are doing as I ought to be. This paper of ours keeps me hopping. We want to make the first issue a bully one—so good that everybody who hasn't subscribed will want to, double-quick. The girls are working up a fine department on Red Cross, canning, and all that sort of thing. I've allowed them three pages for articles and items. Hazel Clement is at the head of it. She's a corking girl, and her mother is going to help her some. Mrs. Clement has been on all sorts of planning boards and committees, and National Leagues and things," concluded Paul vaguely.