St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1906-01-13

Favorite Books Many Times-The
Bible as a Literary Work-The
Book Lover Per Sc Cares Little
for Bindings-If You Wish to Be
Keen-Edged, Read the Newspapers
Newspapers Give Us Things to
Talk About-They Make Our Boys
and Girls Politically Intelligent
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
Copyright, 1905, by Joseph B. Bowles.)
Plenty of people never buy books.
They would think it extravagant to do
SO. They buy moving machines and
patent reapers, steam yachts and au-
money for rugs and divans and new
paper and paint, for satins and laces,
gloves, fans and all the pomps and
vanities, but for books.
They depend on accident. School
premiums, and holiday presents, have
fitted out many a home library. In
a country house, rich in adornment,
standing in the midst of gardens and
parks, l have seen a meager stock of
books, all belonging to the flotsam
and jetsam of yesterday; not to
an immortal yesterday, either, but
the ephemeral and the useless, to the
books that ought to be sent to the
rubbish-heap.
Where do you get your reading
matter?" l asked the housemistress,
wondering much at the strange and
miscellaneous character of the &C.
cumulations.
"Oh, John buys a novel now and
then on the railway, and visitors often
leave books they are done with. We
don't invest in books. They are heavy
things if one moves, and hard to
pack, and nobody ever reads a book
the second time. You can't turn
books into cash, as you can diamonds
and horses"
There spoke the spirit of the toiler
who had grown to wealth from power
ty and to whom culture was unknown.
You couldn't turn books into cash,
and you wouldn't read them a second
time. The ideal of utility did not
make library a desirable asset.
But one does read books the second
time, and the third, and the fourth, if
one is book-lover. If one sets the
right valuation on books, one would
rather have them in the house than
any other plenishing- Mahogany
tables and chairs are very well if
you can afford them, and fine china
is very dear to the housekeeper's
heart, but pine board and bench
will answer for necessities, if the
family prefer literature to other lux
uries.
In the simplest of homes, where the
yearly income to bring up a half-dozen
boys and girls fell under a thousand
dollars, there was plain fare on plain
table; there were bare floors, and in
summer the children ran bare
footed, but there was an abundance
of material to read. New books were
added every quarter to the volumes
already on the shelves, and those vol
umes included history, poetry, biogra-
ply and essays; travel, too, and scien-
tific research. From that home the
sons and daughters have gone to take
high places in the world; one a pro-
fessor, another an editor, another a
lawyer, another a surgeon. Their
trend for life was given in the sweet
humanities of their home, and though
poor, they were gently bred.
What Books to Choose.
II somebody gave me carte blanche
to select his books, and he had none
to begin with, I should revel in the
enterprise. I take it for granted that
English Bible. If you speak English,
you know that the richest vocabulary,
the finest treasury of style, and the
highest system of ethics in the world
are in that familiar book. No American
home should be without it, and no
American father and mother should
venture to train children in ignorance
of its profound and beautiful pages.
But what books shall you choose for
daily reading outside the Bible? Do
you like to read peoples lives, to tread
again in the footprints others have
left in the sands of time? Then read
the lives of Gen. Gordon. Chinese
Gordon;" of Havelock, of Lord Law
renee, of Sydney Smith, Of Queen
Elizabeth, of John Knox, of Mary,
Queen of Scots; of George Washing
ton, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S.
Grant, Frances Willard, Edward
Burne-Jones; of anybody who was
heroic or sturdy or virtuous here, and
who left good example for imitation.
On your shelves have the works of
George Eliot, of Robert Louis Steven
son, of Thomas Carlyle, Of George
Meredith, of Balzac, of Guizot, of
Shakespeare, and of Sir Walter Scott.
Put aside little money every week
and buy one book.
Regarded from the standpoint of
dollars and cents, books are not dear.
Two dollars buys an ordinary book;
you can in no other way get so much
lasting profit from two dollars. OF
course if you want editions de luxe
and sumptuous bindings and fine
paper, you will pay the
price, but the book-lover FER Sc cares |
more for the reading part than for
the dress. The meat in the nut is
more to him than the polished she'll
Read the Newspaper.
Unless you are willing to become |
a back number. to know
nothing whatever about the current of
events, to be rusty and dull-witted in