ce 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.

[10] 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.

CHAPTER V.

Social and Moral Improvement.

SECTION I. _Of Female Society, in general._

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 for the
study of law, medicine, &c. There is yet too much practical
Mohammedanism and Paganism in our manner of educating the young.

If we examine the character and conduct of woman as it now is, and as
history shows it to have been in other periods of the world, we shall
see that much of the good and evil which has fallen upon mankind has
been through her influence. We may