Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-11-13
OLD SCHOOL o
che Queer Things Found in Them he.
fore They Get to the Pulp Mill.

The Queer Things Found in Them he.
fore They Get to the Pulp Mill.
"What becomes of old school books
that are exchanged for new onesP'
said T. E. Lane, of Appleton & Co.,
echoing the He,ald's inquiry. "Old
school books? They go to the paper
mills for pulp. We have sent tons of
them there during tho last few years,
gathered in this city. You ought to see
the way they come in. The First Read
ers arc pretty neal 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
scufed oil, the %fy-leaves and some of
the others are torn out, the binding is
chcwed up, the pages are indescribably
dirty and full of the qucerest lot Of
marks you aver saw. Pennies made by
rubbing are on nearly every leaf.
Sometimes q two-cent piece has been
used, but rarely a nickel OF dime.
The pictures are enough to make
a horse laugh-mon and women, with
panels for bodies and set upon pegs,
animals resembling carpenters horses,
houses of exceedingly composite ar
chitecturc, and locomotives and cars
that look as if they had just come out
of q 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. l often catch myself
wondering which of these used-up
| little books started on the road to
learning our future Mayors, Governors,
great lawyers and editors.
Second readers arc almost as bad.
They are not chewed up quite SO mich,
and as q 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 car
be got there and to destroy everything
else. l 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 u little more
tended to represent. johnnie Smith,
here in the handwriting of the paren,s
vi UCdC1lGlo, OuU COuul OlHlCu SICulC.
can be found printed OF scrawled ina
dozen places.
"The Third readers are in a fair state
of preservation, as school-books 90.
Here the pictures and NAMES of girs
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.
..In the Fourth Readers, as a rule, we
first catch sight of poctical quotations
scribblcd on the margin, these being
sometimes attempts at original versiti-
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 aud 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 tho white
| spaces on the fly leaves. The books
used by boys can be quickly distin-
guishcd 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,
especially of the conversational charac-
ter. Names and other words in the
text are more often changed by scratch
ing out OF altering letters, too. In these
books one could almost follow the styles
in female wear by q 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
t~een-year-olds.
ga majority of the Fifth readers conc
in we'll preserved, with the owners
name neatly written in at the proper
place, and with an almost entire alb
senee of %scribbling, except that in the
books used by the girls, or young Ia
dies, as thoy must now be called, stolen
conversations have been carried on and
then erased by rubber. Not many of
the Fourth or Fifth readers apc brought
in for exchange, as the older pupils
like to keep their books. l dare say
that in the dusty garrcts or closets of
thousands of homes are the old school
books between whose covers, in one way
or another, began the little romances
which ended in weddings, and in time q
demand for more First readers. "-Chi-
cago Herald.