Reading desk

“ Before sitting down to study, a boy should wash his hands, set a guard upon his thoughts, and compose his countenance. He should brush the dust off his desk, place his books upon it in an orderly manner, and read them in a kneeling posture. When he is reading to his teacher, he should not rest his book on a high desk, but on its case or on a low stand. ”

“ Red Gold Plated Screw Pencil Charm. Price 50 cents.
Read carefully the conditions on the first page of Premium List.
[19]
STUDENTS’ COMBINATION DESK AND BLACKBOARD.
One new Study and Writing Desk given for new subscriptions amounting to $3.50.
The inside of the Lid is covered with prepared silicate, thus forming a perfect blackboard. This Desk is for family use. It is a convenient addition to the furniture of a sitting-room. It can be used by any member of the family for reading, writing and study purposes. It is the right size to use with the ordinary house chair. ”

“ I should explain that I cannot write unless I have a sloping desk, and the reading-room of the British Museum, where alone I can compose freely, is unprovided with sloping desks. Like every other organism, if I cannot get exactly what I want I make shift with the next thing to it ”

“ An old-fashioned library table, a quaint walnut desk with many pigeon107 holes, a horse-hair covered settee and a few nondescript, but comfortable-looking chairs completed the furniture.
On the table, strewn with books, a reading lamp gave forth a mellow light. The walls, papered in tan with a deep brown border, were dotted with passe-partouted prints, both in color and black and white. ”

“ Two common forms of library tables are shown in the annexed illustrations. The one on pedestals need not have such large brackets, and the ends can easily be allowed to project at least 18 inches from the pedestals in order to admit of readers sitting at them. In connection with tables there are various kinds of reading slopes made for large books, of which those with movable supporters working in a ratcheted base are the most useful. But there are endless varieties of such reading desks or stands in existence, and some invalid-appliance makers manufacture many different kinds. ”

“ For reading, the desk inclination may be as steep as possible, but this is not easy to manage in school desks. The height of the desk is from a medical point of view secondarily determined as soon as the height of the bench and the difference between the bench and the desk is determined. ”

“ Then there are the small desks made by modern furniture-makers, just large enough to hold a blotting-pad, a paper rack, and a pair of candlesticks. There is always a shallow drawer for writing materials. Such a desk may be decorated to match the chintzes of any small bedroom.
If it isn't possible for you to have a desk in each guest-room, there should be a little writing-room somewhere apart from the family living-room. ”

“ The desks had every convenience that could facilitate study; but what most caught my eye was a little key-board at each, connected by a wire with the librarian's desk. The reader had only to find the mark of his book in the catalog, touch a few lettered or numbered keys, and on the instant a runner at the central desk started for the volume, and, appearing after an astonishingly short interval at the door nearest his desk, brought him his book and took his acknowledgment without disturbing any of the neighboring readers. ”

“ Directly below me was the library table and upon its top a blue desk blotter; a silver filagreed inkstand stood open; penholders, pencils, paper knife were on a tray beside it, one pen lying separate from the others with a ruler, upon the blotting pad; books and a magazine neatly in a pile. The walls, as I circled them with my eyes, were book-lined everywhere except for the grate and the two doors.
Then I inspected the skylight, frame and glass, feeling it over with my hands. There was no entrance here. ”

“ The drawing room desk may be very elegant in design and equipment, for it must be a part of the decoration of the room, and it must be always immaculate for the visitor who wants to write a note. The members of the family are supposed to use their own desks, leaving this one for social emergencies. A good desk is a godsend in a drawing-room, it makes a room that is usually cold and formal at once more livable and more intimate. In my own drawing-room I have a small French writing-table placed near a window, so that the light falls over one's left shoulder. ”

“ On the continent, where the interest excited has been of the deepest character, Doctors of Philosophy and of Medicine have vied with each other in efforts to evolve the most perfect and effective desk possible for school use. The almost unanimous verdict is in favour of a low desk that shall permit the arms of the writer to rest naturally thereon, when he is sitting erect, without either raising or depressing the shoulders, and although this end is seldom actually and individually attained in large schools it can be approximated to very nearly. ”

“ The alcove curtains were drawn back, the cheerful sunshine poured in, glittering on the dark polished wood of the desk, on the yellow-covered books, on the pretty little inlaid chair which stood beside the desk. ”

“ A writing desk of comfortable size, with its chair, is essential in every library. It should be as far away as possible from the type of the modern business desk, and therefore an old-fashioned article with a sloping top, which, when let down, serves for the writing board, is an ideal form. ”

“ The desks are of a convenient height for a reader to use, as shewn by the three students at work in different parts of the Library. The books lie on sloping desks with a ledge in front to prevent them from slipping off. Each desk has a single shelf, and the seat is attached to the desk as at Cesena and Florence, instead of being a separate piece of furniture, as would have been the case in England. ”

“ The sun shone gaily in with never a hint of tragedy, lighting up that bent figure in the arm-chair, and bringing into pitiless prominence details that should have been cloaked decently in shadow, from the drops of moisture on the drawn brow to the hands clenched white beneath the edge of the desk. ”

“ I can speak to you without a photograph! I am often with you, very often.
He's taking Feda into a room with a desk in it; too big for a desk, it must be a table. A sort of a desk, a pretty big one. A chair is in front of it, not a chair like that, a high up chair, more wooden, not woolly stuff; and the light is falling on to the desk; and you are sitting there with a pen or pencil in your hand; you aren't writing much, but you are looking through writing, and making bits of writing on it; you are not doing all the writing yourself, but only bits on it. Raymond is standing at the back of you ”

“ Then slowly, she moves back to the desk, drops the cards into a drawer and locks it. She sits brooding at the desk and the open paper before her seems to fascinate her. As if in a dream she picks up a pencil. A creative look comes into her eyes. Resting her chin on her left arm, she begins slowly to write, murmuring to herself. ”

“ The writing desks are generally long sloping shelves pinned up against the walls as high as the breasts of the pupils who sit before them. The seats are without backs and from eighteen inches to two feet high. Sometimes we have a master's desk, but awkwardly constructed, for the most part too high for the sitting posture and too low for the standing one.... We have no blackboards, no maps and no illustrative apparatus of any kind. ”

“ Above the inkstand is a pen stuck in a hole, with vacant holes beside it. The page on the desk is kept flat by a weight. Above this desk is a second desk, of nearly equal size, on which lies an open book, kept open by a large weight, extending over two-thirds of the open pages. Behind the writer's chair is his book-chest. The background represents a well-appointed chamber. The floor is paved with encaustic tiles; a bright fire is burning on the hearth; the window, on the same plan as that described in the last picture, is open; a comfortable—not to say luxurious—bed invites repose. ”

“ A small circular revolving desk, at the left-hand corner of the larger desk, holds the work he is copying or referring to. On the desk near the inkstand lies the pointed stylus mentioned above. Below the cupboard containing books is a drawer. Projecting from the top of the revolving desk, there is a vertical rod of iron with a long horizontal arm. ”

“ When the proper end of your day has come, she hovers over your desk, and, if you are careless of the time, she breathes a misty breath upon your eyelids, and loads your pen with an invisible weight; the shadow of her gray wings dims your page, and her throbbing hand upon your forehead admonishes you of her presence. ”

“ HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN DESK SET A DESK set is a great addition to a boy’s desk. If he has a pen tray he knows where his pencils and pens are to be found without rummaging through a tangled mess of top strings and marble bags and nails. If he puts away on the bill file that I Owe You that Billy Smith gave him for a pair of rabbits, it won’t be all crumpled up and beyond identification when Billy gets his next month’s allowance. When you come to think of it, a desk set has a great many advantages—and then, there’s the fun of making it. ”

“ But Laura dropped upon her knees, ran her arm to the shoulder into the aperture where the last drawer came out, and drew forth the missing packet of papers, which lay crowded back upon the carpet.
“There!” said Mr. Sharp, quite in a matter-of-fact tone, “I have suggested to the Board of Education more than once that all these old unsanitary desks should be done away with. The only roll-top desk fit to use in the schools are those which stand upon feet, the bottom of the lower drawer being a few inches from the floor. ”

“ If you would enter one of the old buildings there is naught to hinder. Go into one of the lecture-halls which chances at the moment to be unoccupied, and you will see an array of crude old benches for seats that look as if they might have been placed there at the very inaugural of the institution. The boards that serve for desks, if you scan them closer, you will find scarred all over with the marks of knives, showing how some hundreds of successive classes of listeners have whiled away the weary lecture-hours. Not a square inch can you find of the entire desk surface that is un-scarred. ”

“ It is but natural that Inspiration should visit frequently in such an environment; and as a precaution against such an emergency, each contributor's room contains a single operating desk and a large blunt instrument like a typewriter. ”

“ I am convinced that a close inspection of all desks—a federal matter as though Capital were under fire—would betray thousands of abandoned novels. There may be a few stern desks that are so cluttered with price-sheets and stock-lists that they cannot offer harborage to a love tale. Standing desks in particular, such as bookkeepers affect, are not always chinked with these softer plots. And rarely there is a desk so smothered in learning—reeking so of scholarship—as not to admit a lighter nook for the tucking of a sea yarn. ”

“ Only the desk-lamp was lit, so that his face was in shadow, but his two hands, stretched out on the blotter in front of him, lay in a pool of light, and I caught the gleam of his gold signet ring.
He was not writing or working. He seemed to be thinking. I watched him in a fascinated sort of way. ”

“ Before these fittings were constructed, chaining had been practically abandoned, so that it was not necessary to provide either desk or seat. In the place, therefore, of the reader's seat, a low bookcase was set in front of each window. These cases were originally 5 ft. 6 in. high, with a sloping desk on the top on which books [251] could be laid for study. Stools also were provided for the convenience of readers. The larger cases or, as the building-account of the library calls them, "the greater seats," have been a good deal altered in order to accommodate more books. ”

“ By sitting almost square in front of the desk, circulation is not impeded in any way and relaxation will result more [20] easily. The body supports itself, and must not touch the desk. The eyes should be fourteen inches from the paper. In order to be comfortable, the feet must touch the floor. It is within the province of the manual training department to provide wooden footstools of simple construction for the small pupils who must sit at large desks. ”

“ In some of the rooms used by pupils in the lower grades you find a peculiar kind of desk constructed by workmen in the industrial department with the aid of pupils. They are desks readily convertible into work benches, having detachable tops to serve as drawing boards. Instead of the usual type of seat attached to the floor or to the desk immediately behind it, each desk is provided with a substantial four legged stool, also made by the school, and this may be pushed under the desk when pupils do bench work. ”

“ This is evidently the "wheel" of the French King's library. Behind are their books, either resting on a desk hung against the wall, which is panelled, or lying on a shelf beneath the desk. This piece of furniture would be properly described either as a banc or a lettrin. It should be noted that care has been taken to keep the wheel steady by supporting it [296] on a solid base, beneath which are two strong cross-pieces of timber, which also serve as a foot-rest for the readers. The books on the desk set against the wall are richly bound, with bosses of metal. ”