The History Of Education by Ellwood P. Cubberley (epub e reader .txt) 📖

shows that the studies and textbooks were “chiefly or wholly Dilworth’s Spelling Books, the Psalter, Testament, and Bible,” with a little writing and ciphering. A few words of description of these older books may prove useful here.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 130. A HORN BOOK]

 

THE HORN BOOK. The Horn Book goes back to the close of the fifteenth century, [7] and by the end of the sixteenth century was in common use throughout England. Somewhat similar alphabet boards, lacking the handle, were also used in Holland, France, and in German lands. This, a thin oak board on which was pasted a printed slip, covered by translucent horn, was the book from which children learned their letters and began to read, the mastery of which usually required some time. Cowper thus describes this little book:

 

Neatly secured from being soiled or torn Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn, A book (to please us at a tender age ‘T is called a book, though but a single page) Presents the prayer the Savior designed to teach, Which children use, and parsons—when they preach.

 

The Horn Book was much used well into the eighteenth century, but its reading matter was in time incorporated into the school Primer, now evolved out of an earlier elementary religious manual.

 

THE PRIMER. Originally the child next passed to the Catechism and the Bible, but about the middle of the seventeenth century the Primer began to be used. The Primer in its original form was a simple manual of devotion for the laity, compiled without any thought of its use in the schools. It contained the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and a few of the more commonly used prayers and psalms. [8] The Catechism soon was added, and with the prefixing of the alphabet and a few syllables and words it was transformed, as schools arose, into the first reading book for children. There was at first no attempt at grading, illustration, or the introduction of easy reading material. About the close of the seventeenth century the illustrated Primer, with some attempt at grading and some additional subject-matter, made its appearance, both in England and America, and at once leaped into great popularity.

 

The idea possibly goes back to the Orbis Pictus (1654) of Comenius (p.

413: R. 221), the first illustrated schoolbook ever written. The first English Primer adapted to school use was The Protestant Tutor, a rather rabid anti-Catholic work which appeared in London, about 1685. A later edition of this contained the alphabet, some syllables and words, the figures and letters, the list of the books of the Bible, an alphabet of lessons, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and a poem, long famous, on the death of the martyr, John Rogers. [9] It was an abridgement of this book which the same publisher brought out in Boston, about 1690, under the name of The New England Primer (R. 202). This at once leaped into great popularity, and became the accepted reading book in all the schools of the American Colonies except those under the Church of England. For the next century and a quarter it was the chief school and reading book in use among the Dissenters and Lutherans in America.

Schoolmasters drilled the children on the reading matter and the Catechism it contained, and the people recited from it yearly in the churches. It was also used for such spelling as was given. It was the first great American textbook success, and was still in use in the Boston dame schools as late as 1806. It was reprinted in England, and enjoyed a great sale among Dissenters there. Its sales in America alone have been estimated at least three million copies. The sale in Europe was also large. It was followed in England by other Primers and other introductory reading books, of which The History of Genesis (1708), a series of simple stories retold from the first book of the Bible, and The Child’s Weeks-Work

(1712), containing proverbs, fables, conundrums, lessons on behavior, and a short catechism, are types. Frederick the Great, in his list of required textbooks for Prussian schools (R. 274, � 20), does not mention a Primer.

 

[Illustration: THE WESTMINSTER CATECHISM.

(A page from The New England Primer, natural size)]

 

THE CATECHISM. In all Protestant German lands the Shorter Catechism prepared by Luther, or the later Heidelberg Catechism; in Calvinistic lands the Catechism of Calvin; and in England and the American Colonies the Westminster Catechism, [10] formed the backbone of the religious instruction. Teachers drilled their pupils in these as thoroughly as on any other subject, writing masters set as copies sentences from the book, children were required to memorize the answers, and the doctrines contained were emphasized by teacher and preacher so that the children were saturated with the religious ideas set forth. No book except the Bible did so much to form the character, and none so much to fix the religious bias of the children. Almost equal importance was given to the Catechism in Catholic lands (R. 182, �� 21-22), though there supplemented by more religious influences derived from the ceremonial of the Church.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 132. THOMAS DILWORTH (?-1780) The most celebrated English textbook writer of his day.

(From the Frontispiece of his Schoolmaster’s Assistant, 1740)]

 

SPELLERS. The next step forward, in the transition from the religious Primer to secular reading matter for school children, came in the use of the so-called Spellers. Probably the first of these was The English SchoolMaster of Edmund Coote (R. 229), first issued in 1596. This gave thirty-two pages to the alphabet and spelling; eighteen to a shorter Catechism, prayers, and psalms; five to chronology; two to writing copies; two to arithmetic; and twenty to a list of hard words, alphabetically arranged and explained. As will be seen from this analysis of contents, this was a schoolmaster’s general manual and guide. After about 1740 such books became very popular, due to the publication that year of Thomas Dilworth’s A New Guide to the English Tongue. This book contained, as the title-page (R. 229) declared, selected lists of words with rules for their pronunciation, a short treatise on grammar, a collection of fables with illustrations for reading, some moral selections, and forms of prayer for children. It became very popular in New as well as in old England, and was followed by a long line of imitators, culminating in America in the publication of Noah Webster’s famous blue-backed American Spelling Book, in 1783. This was after the plan of the English Dilworth, but was put in better teaching form. It contained numerous graded lists of words, some illustrations, a series of graded reading lessons, and was largely secular in character. It at once superseded the expiring New England Primer in most of the American cities, and continued popular in the United States for more than a hundred years. [11] It was the second great American textbook success, and was followed by a long list of popular Spellers and Readers, leading up to the excellent secular Readers of the present day.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 133. FRONTISPIECE TO NOAH WEBSTER’S “AMERICAN SPELLING

BOOK”

This is from the 1827 edition, reduced one third in size.]

 

ARITHMETIC AND WRITING. The first English Arithmetic, published about 1540

to 1542, has been entirely lost, and was probably read by few. The first to attain any popularity was Cocker’s Arithmetic (1677), this “Being a Plain and Familiar Method suitable to the meanest Capacity, for the understanding of that incomparable. Art.” A still more popular book was Arithmetick: or that Necessary Art Made Most Easie, by J. Hodder, Writing Master, a reprint of which appeared in Boston, in 1719. The first book written by an American author was Isaac Greenwood’s Arithmetick, Vulgar and Decimal, which appeared in Boston, in 1729. In 1743 appeared Dilworth’s The Schoolmaster’s Assistant, a book which retained its popularity in both England and America until after the beginning of the nineteenth century.

 

No text in Arithmetic is mentioned in the School Regulations of Frederick the Great (R. 274, �20), or in scarcely any of the descriptions left us of eighteenth-century schools. The study itself was common, but not universal, and was one that many teachers were not competent to teach. To possess a reputation as an “arithmeticker” was an important recommendation for a teacher, while for a pupil to be able to do sums in arithmetic was unusual, and a matter of much pride to parents. The subject was frequently taught by the writing master, in a separate school, [12] while the reading teacher confined himself to reading, spelling, and religion. Thus, for example, following earlier English practice, the Town Meeting of Boston, in 1789, ordered “three reading schools and three writing schools established in the town” for the instruction of children between the ages of seven and fourteen, the subjects to be taught in each being: The writing schools: Writing, Arithmetic The reading schools: Spelling, Accentuation, Reading of prose and verse, English grammar and composition The teacher might or might not possess an arithmetic of his own, but the instruction to the pupil was practically always dictated and copied instruction. Each pupil made up his own book of rules and solved problems, and few pupils ever saw a printed arithmetic. Many of the early arithmetics were prepared after the catechism plan. There was almost no attempt to use the subject for drill in reasoning or to give a concrete type of instruction, before about the middle of the eighteenth century, [13] and but little along such reform lines was accomplished until after the beginning of the nineteenth century.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 134. TITLE-PAGE OF HODDER’S ARITHMETIC

An early reprint of this famous book appeared in Boston in 1719.]

 

Writing, similarly, was taught by dictation and practice, and the art of the “scrivener,” as the writing master was called, was one thought to be difficult to learn. The lack of practical value of the art, the high cost of paper, and the necessity usually for special lessons, all alike tended to make writing a much less commonly known art than reading. Fees also were frequently charged for instruction in writing and arithmetic; reading, spelling, and religion being the only free subjects. The scrivener and the arithmetic teacher also frequently moved about, as business warranted, and was not fixed as was the teacher of the reading school.

 

THE TEACHERS. The development of the vernacular school was retarded not only by the dominance of the religious purpose of the school, but by the poor quality of teachers found everywhere in the schools. The evolution of the elementary-school teacher of to-day out of the church sexton, bell-ringer, or grave-digger, [14] or out of the artisan, cripple, or old dame who added school teaching to other employment in order to live, forms one of the interesting as well as one of the yet-to-be-written chapters in the history of the evolution of the elementary school.

 

Teachers in elementary schools everywhere in the eighteenth century were few in number, poor in quality, and occupied but a lowly position in the social scale. School dames in England (R. 235) and later in the American Colonies, and on the continent of Europe teachers who were more sextons, choristers, beadles, bell-ringers, grave-diggers, shoemakers, tailors, barbers, pensioners, and invalids than teachers, too often formed the teaching body for the elementary vernacular school (Rs. 231, 232, 233). In Switzerland, the Netherlands, and some of the American Colonies, where schools had become or were becoming local semi-civic affairs, the standards which might be imposed for teaching also were low. The grant of the tailoring monopoly to the elementary teachers of Prussia, [15] in 1738, and Kr�si’s recollections of how he became a schoolmaster in Switzerland, in 1793 (R. 234), were quite typical