Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1884 — How to Treat Books. [ARTICLE]

How to Treat Books.

Very few people treat books well; indeed, there is no variety of portable property that is so persistently abused as books. A great many owners of books have a habit of writing their name on a certain page—the twenty-fifth, for instance —or on the title-page, in a bold, plain hand, with ink. This is not a way to be esteemed, even if the book were never to change its owner. But all books, first or last, do change their owners, and pass into new hands. If a book is so marked, unless the autograph is a noted one like “Balph Waldo Emerson,” or “Charles Dickens the damage the writing of the name confers is decided and positive. If it is necessary to signify the ownership of a book, let it be done by a printed book-plate pasted on the cover modestly, or by a simple pencil mark, which will last sufficiently long for all practicable purposes. If people would only remember that books are property, and are frail, and need the most judicious treatment, they would greatly subserve their own interests, where they own a book, and promote personal regard for themselves, and the advancement of civilization where they borrow one.

But books are handled sometimes with as little care as a mason uses when he handles bricks. They are twisted and turned backward; the leaves are thrust through the fingers and played with as if they were toss. We have seen them used to set under a window and hold it open, and laid carelessly on the floor and left to be stumbled over by the not very guilty pedestrian, who may very well plead that they should not have been placed tfhere his feet could have reached them. There are still some who turn down a leaf and crease the page to show where they left off reading, or to mark some memorable passages. This is, of course, a vile barbarism, and leaves an indelible blemish. It is utterly inexcusable, too, from the fact that it is entirely unnecessary. A book mark, which may be a simple piece of paper, is all that is needed for preserving the place, and a pencil mark, lightly made here and there, and which can be easily removed, will enable the reader to turn to all passages to which he may need to go back for reference. It is almost as needful to know how to treat a book as it is to know how to treat a person; and it would not be amiss if in our schools, where books first begin to be used, children should be taught the precise care to be given them. The things unpardonable to which they are subject are numerous, and, with proper rules, early instilled, a new generation might be trained to treat a book as—supposing the places to be changed—you would have a book treat you. For those who have already been ill trained, or who do not have a proper instinct in the matter, there is probably no help, and nothing can be done—except simply to see , tp it* as far as possible, that your books kept out of their hands.