Excerpt from Improvement Era, Vol. 12: September, 1909 A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it. And the love of knowledge in a young mind, is almost a warrant against the inferior excitement of passions and vices. - H. Mann. Books are masters, who instruct us without rods or ferrules, without words or anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you seek them, they do not hide; if you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you. R. DE bury. Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than books! A message to us from the dead, from human souls we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thou, sands of miles away, and yet these, in those little sheets of paper, speak to us, arouse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. Chas. Kingsley. Perhaps no other thing has such power to lift the poor out of his poverty, the wretched out of his misery, to make the burden-bearer forget his burden, the sick his suffering, the sorrower his grief, the down trodden his degradation, as books. They are friends to the lonely, companions to the deserted, joy to the joyless, hope to the hopeless, good cheer to the disheartened, a helper to the helpless. They bring light into darkness, and sunshine into shadow - O. S. Marden. I believe all that is said in these paragraphs, in relation to the power of books. I suppose you believe it, also, my brethren, and I hope there will be a determined effort made to lift the stand ard among our young men, in relation to this subject, that it may never be possible again for a report to be made showing so small a percentage as four, or even seven per cent of the active member ship of our associations who are acquiring the reading habit. Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends. Too, we should return to them again and again, for, like true friends, they will never fail us, never cease to instruct, never clog. Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books. - colton. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.