among the poor, would have done more towards real independence, than all this parade?

5. Rainy. Would it not have been better had I staid at home yesterday, while

the weather was fair, and gone on with haying? Several acres of father's grass want cutting very much. I am more and more sick of going to independence. If I live till another year, I hope I shall learn to make hay while the sun shines,' independence, or no independence.

I selected a common agricultural employment to illustrate my subject, first, because I suppose a considerable proportion of my readers are farmers, and secondly, because it is an employment which is generally supposed to furnish little or nothing worth recording. The latter, however, is a great mistake. Besides writing down the real incidents that occur, many of which would be interesting, and some of them highly important facts, the thoughts, which the circumstances and incidents of an agricultural life are calculated to elicit, are innumerable. And these should be always put down. They are to the mere detail of facts and occurrences, what leaves and fruit are to the dry trunk and naked limbs of a tree. The above specimen is very dry indeed, being intended only as a hint. Pages, instead of a few lines, might some

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times be written, when our leisure permitted, and thoughts flowed freely.

One useful method of improving our minds, and preparing ourselves for usefulness, would be, to carry a small blank book and pencil in our pockets, and when any interesting fact occurred, embrace the first spare moment to put it down, say on the right hand page; and either then, or at some future time, place on the left hand page, our own reflections about it. Some of the most useful men in the world owe much of their usefulness to a plan like this, promptly and perseveringly followed. Quotations from books or papers might also be preserved in the same manner.*

Perhaps it may be thought, at first, that this advice is not in keeping with the caution formerly given, not to read as we travel about; but if you reflect, you will find it otherwise. Reading as we travel, and at meals, and the recording of facts and thoughts which occur, are things as different as can well be conceived. The latter creates and encourages a demand for close observation, the former discourages and even suppresses it.

11.

PRESERVATION OF BOOKS AND PAPERS.

Let books be covered as soon as bought. Never use them without clean hands. They show the dirt with extreme readiness, and it is not easily

* Some persons always read with a pen or pencil in hand, and when a thought occurs, note it in a little book, kept for the purpose.

removed. I have seen books in which might be traced the careless thumbs and fingers of the last reader, for half a dozen or a dozen pages in succession.

I have known a gentleman quite a literary man, too who, having been careful of his books in his younger years, and having recently found them occasionally soiled, charged the fault on those who occasionally visited his library. At last be discovered that the coal dust (for he kept a coal fire) settled on his hands, and was rubbed off upon his book leaves by the slight friction of his fingers upon the leaves in reading.

Never wet your finger or thumb in order to turn over leaves. Many respectable people are addicted to this habit, but it is a vulgar one. entirely useless. The same remarks

Besides, it is

might be applied to the habit of suffering the corners of the leaves to turn up, in dog's ears. Keep every leaf smooth, if you can. Never hold a book very near

the fire, nor leave it in the hot sun.

It injures its cover materially, and not a few books are in one or both of these ways entirely ruined.

It is a bad practice to spread a book out open with the back upwards. It loosens the leaves, and also exposes it in other respects. You will rarely find a place to lay it down which is entirely clean, and the least speck of dust will show.

The plan of turning down a leaf to enable us to remember the place, I never liked. It indulges the memory in laziness. For myself, if I take

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much interest in a book, I can remember where I left off, and turn at once to the place without a mark. If a mark must be used at all, however, a slip of paper, or a piece of tape or ribbon is the best.

When you have done using a book for the time, have a place for it, and put it in its place. How much time and patience might be saved if this rule were universally followed! Many find it the easiest thing in the world to have a place for every book in their library, and to keep it in its place. They can put their hands upon it in the dark, almost as well as in the light.

Never allow yourselves to use books for any other purpose but reading. I have seen people recline after dinner and at other times, with books under their heads for a pillow. Others will use them to cover a tumbler, bowl, or pitcher. Others again will raise the window, and set them under the sash to support it; and next, perhaps, the book is wet by a sudden shower of rain, or knocked out of the window, soiled or otherwise injured, or lost. I have seen people use large books, such as the family-bible, or encyclopedia, to raise a seat, especially for a child at table. Books should be kept in a dry, as well as clean place, for moisture greatly injures them.

CHAPTER V.

Social and Moral Emprovement.

SECTION I. Society of Females, generally.

No young man is fully aware how much he is indebted to female influence in forming his character. Happy for him if his mother and sisters were his principal companions in infancy. I do not mean to exclude the society of the father, of course; but the father's avocations usually call him away from home, or at least from the immediate presence of his children, for a very considerable proportion of his time.

It would be easy to show, without the possibility of mistake, that it is those young men who are shut out either by accident or design, from female society, that most despise it. And on this account, I cannot but regret the supposed necessity which prevails of having separate schools for the two sexes; unless it were professional ones—I mean