Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-10-22
OLD SCHOOL BOOKS.
The Queer Things Found in Them BE
fore They Get to the Pulp Mill.


The Queer Things Found in Them Be-
fore They Get to the Pulp Mill.
''What becomes of old school books
that are exchanged for new ones?"
said Z. E. Lane, of Appleton & Co..
echoing the Herald's inquiry. "Old
school books? They go to the paper
mills for pulp. We have sent tons of
them there. during the last few years.
gathered in this city. You ought to see
the way they come in. The First Read
ers are pretty near pulp when we get
hold of them. In some cases it is
impossible to tell whether they are
First Readers or Eastwood chips that
have been soaked. All the printing on
the outside of the covers has been
scuffed Off, the fly-leaves and some of
the Others are torn out, the binding is
chewed up, the pages are indescribably
dirty and full of the queerest lot of
marks you ever saw. Pennies made by
rubbing are on nearly every leaf.
Sometimes two-cent piece has been
used, but rarely nickel or dime.
The pictures are enough to make
horse laugh-men and women, with
panels for bodies and set upon pegs.
animals resembling carpenters horses,
houses of exceedingly composite ar
chitecture, and locomotives and ears
that look as if they had just come out
of bad wreck. These are the books
that the little fellows chew and finger
and lose in the mud, and leave out in
the rain, and batter each other over
the head with. | often catch myself
oh nf
little books started on the road to
learning our future Mayors, Governors,
great lawyers and editors.
Second readers are almost as bad.
They are not chewed up quite so mich,
and as a rule the leaves are not torn
out in such reckless profusion, showing
a bit of change from the baby tendency
to put everything in the mouth that can
be got there and to destroy everything
else. I have noticed that it is in the
Second readers that the practice of fill
ing up the o's with pencil marks begins
and that the pictures have little more
resemblance to the objects they are in
tended to represent johnnie Smith,
his book, is a common inscription along
here in the handwriting of the parents
or teachers, but johnny Smith reader
can be found printed or scrawled in a
dozen places.
The Third readers are in fair state
of preservation, as school-books go.
Here the pictures and names of girls
begin to appear on the fly leaves or
inside of the covers, and some senti-
mental passages are underscored with
pencil. The fac SMILES of coin run
through the whole series, however, and
l guess the love of money is about the
earliest, strongest and longest-staying
passion the human race develops. At
least, that is what the school books
show.
sin the Fourth Readers, as a rule, we
first catch sight of poetical quotations
scrubbed on the margin, these being
sometimes attempts at original versifi-
cation, bringing in the names of Mary,
Emma, SADIE, Laura, Nettie, or some
other girl. Here and there are the
remnants OF conversations carried
on by pencil and fearfully and
completely scratched out. There
is romance there. Here also
the rage for writing ones own name.
which began in the Third Reader. is
found working havoc with the white
spaces on the fly leaves. The books
used by boys can be quickly distin-
guished from those used by girls. The
latter are generally better preserved as
to binding. and the pages are not so
dirty, out there is more scribbling,
of the conversational charac-
ter. Names and other words in the
text are more often changed by scratch
ing out or altering letters, too. In these
books one could almost follow the styles
in female wear by a close examination
of the pictures on the fly leaves and
margins. George Charley Harry
ETC., scrubbed here and there, tell of
the little love affairs among the four
teen-year- olds.
ga majority of the Fifth readers come
in well preserved. with the owners
name neatly written in at the proper
place, and with an almost entire alb
sence of scribbling, except that in the
books used by the girls, or young Ia
dies, as they must now be called, stolen
have been carried on and
then erased by rubber. Not many of
the Fourth or Fifth readers are brought
n for exchange, az the older pupils
ike to keep their books. 1 dare say
that in the dusty garrets or closets of
thousands of homes are the old school
books between whose covers, in one way
OF another, began the little romances
which ended in weddings, and in time
demand for more First readers. "-Chi-
cGgo Herald.