THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION

STUDIES AND TEXTBOOKS.

Source: THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION

EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE AND PROGRESS CONSIDERED AS A PHASE OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

BY
ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
Stanford University, California September 4, 1920



The studies of the elementary vernacular school
remained, throughout the whole of the eighteenth century, much as before,
namely, reading, a little writing and ciphering, some spelling, religion,
and in Teutonic countries a little music. La Salle (R. 182) had
prescribed, for the Catholic vernacular schools of France, instruction in
French, some. Latin, "orthography, arithmetic, the matins and vespers, le
Pater, l'Ave Maria, le Credo et le Confiteor, the Commandments, responses,
Catechism, duties of a Christian, and maxims and precepts drawn from the
Testament." The Catechism was to be taught one half-hour daily. The
schoolbooks in England in Locke's day, as he tells us (p. 435), were "the
Horn Book, Primer, Psalter, Testament, and Bible." These indicate merely a
religious vernacular school. The purpose stated for the English Church
charity-schools (R. 238 b), schools that attained to large importance in
England and the American Colonies during the eighteenth century, shows
them to have been, similarly, religious vernacular schools. The _School
Regulations_ which Frederick the Great promulgated for Prussia (1763),
fixed the textbooks to be used (R. 274, § 20), and indicate that the
instruction in Prussia was still restricted to reading, writing, religion,
singing, and a little arithmetic. In colonial America, Noah Webster's
description (R. 230) of the schools he attended in Connecticut, about
1764-70, 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
School-Master_ 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.