find here wholesome books of adventure, and tales such as a boy likes;
let the girls find the stories which delight them and give their fancy
and imagination exercise; let the tired housewife find the novels
which will transport her to an ideal realm of love and happiness;
let the hard-worked man, instead of being expected always to read
"improving" books of history or politics, choose that which shall give
him relaxation of mind and nerve, perhaps the Innocents abroad, or
Josh Billings' "Allminax," or Samanthy at Saratoga.




CHAPTER XXXIX

Books as useful tools


There is still too much of superstition and reverence mingled with
the thought of books and literature, and study and studentship in the
popular mind. Books are tools, of which here and there one is useful
for a certain purpose to a certain person. The farmer consults his
farm paper on the mixing of pig-feed; the cook takes from the latest
treatise the rules for a new salad; the chemist finds in his journal
the last word on the detection of poisons; the man of affairs turns
to the last market reports for guidance in his day's transactions; and
all have used books, have studied literature. The hammer and the
poem, the hoe and the dictionary, the engine and the encyclopedia, the
trowel and the treatise on philosophy--these are tools. One and all,
they are expressions of the life of the race. But they are not, for
that reason, to be reverenced. They are proper for man's service, not