PAEAN OF PRAISE FOR OLD BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE

Reading Paul Greenberg's long litany of things he was thankful for, I said a silent "Amen" after each one. When I came to his listing of "Old editions of the Book of Knowledge," I could contain my happy silence no longer and spoke aloud, "Yes, yes. Me too." I'm sure many read right over that listing and noted more especially his mention of greater things--" (thankful) for the hope of youth, the wisdom of age...for every child's clear, quick sense of justice...for peace however fragile, freedom however high the price."

"Old editions of the Book of Knowledge" was such a little thing for him to include but it stirred me. I've often wondered if there was anyone else who loved these old books as much as I do; indeed, wondered if my set might not be the last one on earth. I've even thought, from time to time, that I might be classed as a lowbrow, mulling around in these old classics Greenberg delightfully calls, unimproved, instead of the sleek, unadorned, up-to-date Encyclopedia Britannica.

My introduction to these twenty volumes of the Book of Knowledge goes back to Grade One, Loughboro School. When the series of Twins books (Eskimo, Dutch, Japanese, etc.) were thoroughly read and digested, as well as Peter Rabbit and The Sunbonnet Babies, we first graders were allowed to take one of these dark red covered books from the higher shelf of the meager school library and peruse it as best we could. A fancy black scroll surrounds the title which is imprinted with gold. Beautiful, glittering gold then that wouldn't rub off no matter how wonderingly we traced the handsome letters with out fingers. The gold is a little dulled now. The last copyright shown is 1919~!

Although, as first graders, we couldn't yet handle the index, if we kept turning the pages we'd come across such things as a section called, "Little Verses for Very Little People," and die with silent laughter at such nonsensical poems as, "The man in the moon/ Came tumbling down/ And asked his way to Norwich/ He went by the south/ And burnt his mouth/ With sipping cold pease porridge."

I think of that little ditty now and wonder what about it delighted us so much, along with others just as silly. Was it that we were learning there was room for nonsense in this world? A world emerging from a war that had, among other things, brought brown, bran biscuits to our breakfast table? Was it our first adventure with rhymes, seemingly for rhyme's sake only? Was it because we could sit and read something from one of the big, pretty books and at the same time see the big Eighth Grade pupils across the room reading form another volume of the set? Didn't have nutin' on us, they didn't! Maybe it was all these things and more.

As I examine the books now, I know that my thankfulness for them is the "there-once-was-a-Camelot" feeling it gives me. There once was a time when bookmakers, in this case the Grolier Society, had time to put a fancy border around each page, like a frame enclosing the text. Ever see that now? Furthermore the border changed with the texts. A subject of "Hot Things and Cold Things" is completely bordered with miniature, connected pictures of the sun, volcanoes, icebergs and snow storms. "The French Revolutionists" is bordered by tiny but identifiable pictures of Voltaire, Rousseau, Robespierre, etc. One learns almost as much from these little touches which I call "grace notes" as he does form the printed text.

That's it! Grace notes! Southern writer, Archibald Rutledge, sums it up this way. "A wild flower is one of life's extras, one of those things that we do not HAVE to have but which we enjoy all the more for that very reason...Creation supplies us with only two kinds of things; necessities and extras. Sunlight, air, water, food, shelter--these are among the bare necessities. With them we can exist. But moonlight and starlight are distinctly extras; so are music, the perfume of flowers. The wind is perhaps a necessity; but the song that it croons through the morning pines is a different thing...These things manifest a Power that understands the hunger of our souls for beauty..."

The bordered pages, the pen and ink illustrations, the nonsensical poems as well as serious, the very type of print in the old editions of the Book of Knowledge make up some of the things that satisfy the hunger for beauty.

REJOICE!