Books Are Friends
Carolyn Pollock
 
Many people say that a dog is a man's best friend, but I believe that those who are looking forward to higher education will agree that books can be of more value to man than the soft glance from a dog's brown eyes.
During the war, books were considered of such importance that naval libraries were established in Halifax, Esquimalt, Newfoundland and many other places. Sometimes it was a couple of months before a book was returned, but always the books were quite dog-eared after the long and constant usage at sea.
Think what a good friend a book is to someone who is blind! Louis Braille's wonderful invention opened up their closed minds to vast new horizons of distant lands, and knowledge that might have remained forever unknown to them.
The great advantage of books is that they can be carried easily and that no other equipment is needed than knowing how to read. Books will last longer, will stand harder wear than films or records, and they can be read under any conditions; but best of all, reading does not disturb others.
By the time Abraham Lincoln was fourteen, he had read every book within a radius of fifty miles from his home. One day, he walked twenty miles just to borrow one book. He was heard to say, 'My best friend is the man who will get me a book I haven't read.'
Now, pause to think of all that books have brought to us: - the Scriptures , inspiring hymns, history of all ages, tales of love and adventure and stories of great heroes and explorers. All these and a host of other thoughts crowd our minds and prove that books are friends, as this little poem points out:

'Pictures are windows to many lands
But a book is a door that ready stands
To him who will open and go outside,
Where the rivers and plains are free and wide
Pictures are windows through which we look,
But the door of the world is just a book.'