Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all. A man will often look at them, and be tempted to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger size and of a more erudite appearance. --_Dr. Johnson._ 138 COSTLY, YET USEFUL BOOKS. How foolish is the man who sets up a number of costly volumes, like superfluous furniture, for mere ornament, and is far more careful to keep them from contracting a single spot of ink, than to use them, as the means of instructing his ignorance, and correcting his faults! Better a man without books, than books without a man. --_Scriver._ 139 There are two bores in society--the man who knows too much, and the man who knows too little. --_London Paper._ 140 Those who would scorn to "accept"-- Borrow, and keep without qualm. 141 A boy of 17, 18 or 19 has reached an age when he should win his own way, and seek his own sustenance, physical and mental. 142 "My boy," said a father to his son, "treat everybody with politeness, even those who are rude to you, for remember that you show courtesy to others, not because they are gentlemen, but because you are one." 143 GRACEFUL AND GALLANT. It is reasonably safe to assume from a story in the New York Tribune that the late Henry Harland, the novelist, was seldom kept after school in his boyhood. Among Harland's early teachers was a charming young lady, who called him up in class one morning and said to him: "Henry, name some of the chief beauties of education." "Schoolmistresses," the boy answered, smiling into his teacher's pretty eyes. --_From Youth's Companion._ 144 John Ruskin, in one of his lectures, said: "There is just this difference between the making of a girl's character and a boy's: You may chisel a boy into shape as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze; but you can not hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does--she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath as a narcissus will if you do not give her air enough; she must take her own fair form and way if she take any, and in mind as in body, must have always-- "'Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty.'" You bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, and then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advantages that you give their brothers; teach them, that courage and truth are the pillars of their being. Again: "The man's work for his own home, is to secure its maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness.