Lyman Hall High school - Singer Chronicle Yearbook (Wallingford, CT)

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10 THE CHRONICLE the twenty-fourth threshold was and what the whole would come to?” Such was the mathematics that the student of the seventeen hundreds had to study. In 1788 there was published a mathematics textbook in which there was nearly everything known about the subject at that time. It was Nicholas Pike’s A New and Cornpleal Arithmetic Composed for Citizens of the United Stales. This textbook contained five hundred and twelve pages; four hundred and eight devoted to arithmetic, sixty to plane geometry, trigonometry, and mensuration, thirty-three to algebra, and ten to an introduction to conic sections. It was bound in leather, as were most textbooks of that time. This book was presumably of a more prosaic nature. In the early nineteenth century the books studied by the higher classes in a girls’ academy were Morse’s Geography, Murray’s English Grammar, Pope’s Essay on Man, Blair’s Rhetoric, and the Bible. Although we do not know exactly what was the nature of some of these books, their titles do not sound so imaginative as those of the previous century. As the nineteenth century advances, we notice among others the history textbooks. These contained a great deal about the Civil War. There were long, detailed accounts of battles, while comparatively little was presented about the social and economic life of the times. ' The textbooks of the present time have lost the imaginative qualities which characterized the early textbooks. Their content may be placed under five different headings: statements of fact; records of thinking, such as arguments or demonstrations of geometrical theorems and propositions; results of generalization; descriptions or expressions of feeling; and explicit learning exercises. A greater part of the contents of high-school textbooks can be classified under statements of fact and results of generalizing experience. Usually the material in books cannot be called any one type, for description and records of thinking will almost always contain statements of fact. Among the newest textbooks are books on motion pictures written for school use. Such texts are very interesting. They aim to show the student how to choose the most worth while moving pictures and also to increase his appreciation of the pictures which he sees. Recently many high schools have adopted periodicals to supplement their textbooks. The magazines used in school are those of the highest type, such as The Reader's Digest. This magazine is a good one because it contains in a condensed form worth while articles from many other magazines. There have been many things right and many things wrong about textbooks since their beginning. The early textbooks were very imaginative, as we have seen from the example quoted above. The books sounded just like fairy tales. Someone has said that he did not see how a lad could help doing such fascinating problems. But it seems to me that the idea of the problem is lost when such an elaborate story is built around it. These textbooks lacked the element of ”real-lifeness” which, it seems to me, is necessary to bring home an idea to a student. Present textbooks are a great improvement over the early ones. They have lost the imaginativeness and perhaps in some cases have gone almost

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THE CHRONICLE 9 NEW SCHOOLBOOKS FOR OLD Essay with Salutatory Rank Welcome, parents and friends, to these graduation exercises. We of the Class of 1935 are especially privileged, for we have two three hundredth anniversaries to celebrate. We are the only class that can ever be graduated from this school during the Tercentenary of Connecticut and during the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of the first high school in America. It is, therefore, with this fact in mind that we hold these exercises. Again I bid you welcome. Ever since its beginning in 1635, American secondary education has been associated with textbooks. The schools of America have always been “book schools.” The use of textbooks has been developed to a great extent in this country, far more than jS1 Europe, and a great many changes have been made since early Colonia mes. The textbooks of the seventeenth century seem to have reflected the life of those times. Looking through a book, one could picture the life of the people. In a Latin grammar written in the difficult days of William and Mary, one comes to phrases like this: “Knaves confer with Knaves when they are about to plot against the King,” or “They that design the destruction of the King, first detract from his Honour and his Wisdom in governing the Commonwealth.” The textbook writers of the eighteenth century put a great deal that was imaginative into their books; in fact one person speaks of an eighteenth century arithmetic textbook as being “delightful reading. lie quotes the following problem in geometric progression as an example of this: “A merchant having a soft young man to son, covetous enough, but scarce able to keep a shop-book, was minded to purchase for him considerable lands in the country and bid him inquire out some handsome estate that would be sold, and he would buy it for him. The young man, overjoyed at the news, runs to an inn, where he heard divers country gentlemen lodged, and in all haste asked them if any one of them would sell their estates? Most of them were very angry, and near beating of him; but one of them being a facetious gentleman, resolved to play a trick upon him and told him that he had a neat hall with a goodly park and manor on the bank of a pleasant river, and a great number of sufficient tenants, all of which, with the royalty of a fair, market-town, and patronage of a parish-church, belonging thereto, should be his, upon condition that he would lay down one penny on the threshold of the porch-door belonging to the hall, twopence at the next door, fourpence at the third door, and so on, doubling till he had gone through all the doors, which were sixty-four in all. ‘I will have it,’ saith the young man, ‘and here is a piece in earnest,’ and in all haste tells his father what a purchase he has made, wishing him to give him a hundred pounds, for that, he thought, could not but abundantly satisfy. ‘Thou calf,’ quoth his father,' the King of Spain's revenues would not pay what thou hast promised, if they were sold at twenty years’ value; much less can my estate, for it will not bring thee past the twenty-fourth threshold. The best is, the gentleman knows thee not; but I will warrant he is making merry with a fool’s earnest.’ Now I desire to know what the sum laid down on

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THE CHRONICLE 11 too far in (lie other direction. To he interesting to students some tilings must be told and explained with a story, but this story must be one which makes the facts real and vital, one which is in tune with the times. Textbooks should be written so that they have a “human appeal.” They should be written for the student, to develop his interests and to help him to find new ones. Illustrations may help a great deal in making subject matter clear. In that matter of being “in tune with the times” a good many textbooks used today are at fault. Instead of going to great length to describe wars, which are past, histories might better show what the social and economic life is, and how it is an improvement upon the past. As Cedric Fowler says, “The world he meets on graduation will not lie filled with the romance and glory of military combat. It will be a place where economic forces and industrial technique are dominant.” The writers of new histories are endeavoring to take this fact into consideration. One describes the World War in seventeen hundred words, with hardly a mention of a battle. Other types of textbooks are, also, at fault. Those on social subjects give very little notice to unemployment and depressions, which the student is liable to meet when he goes out into the world. Civics texts do not keep up with the constant changes in the government. Mathematics texts use as examples men who save from one-half to one-third of their incomes. It will be quite safe, I believe, to say that textbooks will be used in high schools for some time to come. However, I believe that the use of textbooks will become more informal as the years go on. For example, in an English class, after the entire class has studied one play together, a great many books of plays may be brought from the library. Then several days may be devoted to reading plays, each student reading whatever ones he desires, and brief reports may be made on those which have been enjoyed. In this way the students may come in contact with all kinds, new ones, old ones, comedies, and tragedies. The same thing may be done in the case of poetry. Instead of reading one or two poems each of few authors, access may be given to many types of poems. By reporting on and reading the poems aloud in class, this method may have still farther-reaching results. Such a procedure would seem to stimulate more interest and a greater desire to do the reading. Also, if library books are brought into the classroom, the student may come to have a deeper appreciation of the right kind of books, which he might not get if left to his own devices. Since the first secondary school in 1635 there have been many changes in textbooks. The first ones were very imaginative, but later they became more prosaic. Then another change was made when textbooks were brought into closer connection with life so that students might be better prepared to go out into the world. Today a greater variety of books is being used in the high schools, and this makes the work far more interesting. I think that these changes have been improvements but that more are yet to come. However this may be, we cannot deny that books are the foundation of our learning and will continue to be for many years to come. Yarley Bingham References: Directing Learning in the High School—Walter S. Monroe—Page 198 Life in America One Hundred Years Ago—Gaillard Hunt—Page 133 A tlantic Monthly—March. 1921—Old Schoolbooks The Journal of the National Education Association—December, 1925—Early Textbooks—A rithmet ics