Over the years, many primary and secondary schools have employed bookplates to admonish students aga

Over the years, many primary and secondary schools have employed bookplates to admonish students against marking up their textbooks. These three examples all come from 1940s American school books, but each one delivers its message in a very different way!

Some school bookplates, such as this eye-catching red one pasted into a 1942 third-grade grammar book, are touchingly poetic, requiring that its owner promise to: 

Keep it clean; Refrain from marking it up; Keep from tearing or rolling up page corners; Be kind to this book as though it has a soul 

Because it is my friend!

Other examples seem a bit more sterile, by comparison. The language used in this 1947 French textbook, for example, matches the plain, utilitarian design of the bookplate:

Please do not write in this book. Remember that other students must use it later. Please keep it as neat and unsoiled as you can. Your cooperation in this matter will be appreciated.

Our final bookplate, from a 1946 English reader, is decidedly more… civic-minded. Issued and owned by the State of Arizona, this label outlines what it calls the “Good Citizenship Code For Pupils Using State Textbooks”, a set of rules that includes such pledges as:

I will respect and take care of the property of the State.

I will keep my books clean outside and inside.

I will not spoil their pages with finger prints.

I will guard my books as a trust from the State.

I will keep my books fit for those to use who come after me as I expect those who come before me to keep their books fit for me to use.

Of course, as we have seen over andover andover again, schoolchildren were generally not afraid to mark up their textbooks. We’ll leave it to our followers to decide which books (in the words of that first bookplate) have more soul: the clean, unmarked copies or the used and soiled ones.