This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor.
One of my correspondents asks, in a general way, what I think about old school-books. Should a girl sell them, if she can, when passing on to a higher class in which she does not need the books used in the former term? Ought they be taken care of with as much pains as one bestows on the books in the library or the pretty illustrated editions which come to one as gifts at birthdays and holidays?
To the first question I answer, without hesitation, keep all your school-books if you possibly can. Never sell them or dispose of them in any way unless it is very plainly your duty to somebody else to do so. For instance, in a family an older sister may let the younger children have her books when she is done with them. This may save her parents the expense of buying new ones, and having the same books duplicated in the household collection. Or there may be in your acquaintance a girl too poor to buy new books, who will be very glad and thankful to have yours as a gift. In this case it will be your pleasure, I am sure, to make this friend happy, and to relieve her of anxiety, and help her in procuring her education. But, as a rule, I would advise you to keep your books for yourself. Even when you have finished studying in a particular book you may want it to refer to, and after your school-days are over your books will be reminders of the delightful times you had when you used them. School-books are valuable because they are written in a clear, plain, straightforward style which it is quite easy to comprehend. They do not wander away from the point, and they give a great deal of information packed up in a small compass. A good school-book on any subject is a real treasure.
All books should be treated with respect. No nice person leaves books lying around heedlessly, with the bindings opened widely so that they become loosened, and the pages curling up at the corners. If a girl is neat about her room and her dress, she will surely be so in the care of her books. Never let books gather dust. They are as ornamental as pictures or flowers or vases, and a house in which there are a number of books is already half furnished.
I speak with the more emphasis about the folly of selling school-books because I have a confession to make. Once, a long while ago, I was moving from my home to a distant State, to stay for some years, and I owned a book-case, a pretty affair with five shelves, to which a friend took a fancy. "Sell me the book-case," she pleaded; "you will not need it for ages, and I would like it so much for my own library." Well, I did not sell the book-case; I gave it away, and that part of the transaction I have never regretted in the very least. But, alas! the little case was full of grammars, and geographies, and logics, and rhetorics, and spellers, and arithmetics, and lexicons, the dear books that had kept me company all the way from childhood on, and in an evil moment I was persuaded to sell those to a dealer in second-hand books. I was sorry the next time I needed to look at one of the dear things, and, if you will believe me, girls, I am still sorry. I changed something precious for a little bit of money when I disposed of my books. And I wish I had not done it.
If by any chance books have been used by a patient in illness, such as scarlet-fever or any other contagious disease, they must immediately be burned up. This is the only safe way. A child recovering from such an attack may ask for his or her books to play with. Let the books be given, if the mother is willing, but they must be destroyed afterwards. Even if they have remained on shelves in the room and the patient has not so much as touched them they must be burned, for books have a way of preserving germs of disease, and must be used only by people who are not ill with anything infectious or who are perfectly well.
Do I think books should be covered? To save the bindings, you mean? It depends on how very clean and dainty are the hands which hold them. Smooth white paper makes a good covering, and is easily renewed, and most publishers in these days provide attractive covers for the beautiful books they sell.
As December finishes the period for their subscriptions, will the friends who accepted the Baby boxes a twelvemonth ago kindly send their boxes as soon as possible to Mrs. Sangster, care of Harper's Round Table, Franklin Square, New York?
