WRITE TO: The Office of Education, Nursery-Kindergarten- Secondary Education Colleges and Professional School Administration School Finance School Legislation Exceptional Child Rural School Problems School Supervision School Statistics School Libraries Agricultural Education Educational Research School Building Commercial Education Homemaking Education Radio Education Native and Minority Parent Education Physical Education Rehabilitation Teacher Education Educational Tests and Comparative Education SCHOOL LIFE Congress, in 1867, established the Office of Education to "collect such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories"; to "diffuse such information as shall aid in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems"; and "otherwise to promote the cause of education throughout the country." To diffuse expeditiously information and facts collected, the Office of Education publishes SCHOOL LIFE, a monthly service, September through June. SCHOOL LIFE provides a national perspective of education in the United States. Order its service for 1 year by sending $1.00 to the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. To foreign countries, $1.45 a year. On all orders for 100 copies or more to be sent to one address, the Superintendent of Documents allows a discount of 25 percent. Enter subscriptions also through magazine dealers. Send all editorial communications pertaining to SCHOOL LIFE to Editorial Division, Office of Education, U. S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C. The printing of SCHOOL LIFE has been approved by the Director of the Budget. Almost Christmas Again? ONE of the strangest things about Christmas is how very, very often it seems to come around. There is a secret to this, we are told, like there is always a secret to Santa Claus. Take a day instead of a year, for example. When a full and busy day is done we often say, "How fast this day has gone!" It seems but a little while since morning and yet it is evening. On the other hand, when activity and fullness of effort, and challenge, have for any reason been lacking, we feel, even if we do not say it to others, "How long this day has seemed!" The actual working hours may have numbered the same for each of the two contrasting days. It was the challenge, the interest, the demands, the opportunities for service, that had been different. Years, like days, seem long or short in keeping with their activity and usefulness. Fill a year with fitting action and that year seems short in retrospect. Perhaps in this is the secret to the life of a real teacher. The days are so full of opportunity, so rich in service, so vital in influence. How could the day spent with youth seem long? How could the year given to the art of teaching be but the briefest span, far too short to accomplish one's full desire? And so it is almost Christmas again! To you who serve in that "grand army" of teachers, we can think of no better wish for you than that last year's Christmas may seem but yesterday, and that next year's Christmas may seem to follow closely on its heels. This is only another way of wishing you joy in your work. For what can give greater joy than service? Educators' Bulletin Board The Comparison of Encyclopedias, by 6th ed. 1936. 25 Laurance H. Hart. (From L. H. Hart, cents, single copies. 21 Forest St., Cambridge, Mass.) A chart 11 by 171⁄2 inches presents the main features of 26 encyclopedias, with critical comments, as an aid for selection. Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Md., offers a new edition of its Poetry Broadsides, 17 by 22 inches, printed in beautiful typography, black and white illustrations on heavy paper of various tints. The library will send a checklist and order blank to any school or library interested: 10 cents each plus cost of shipping and mailing (minimum, 6 for $1.00). Guidance Occupational Studies, a series of pamphlets issued by the National Occupational Conference, 551 Fifth Avenue, New York, 10 cents each. Appraisals and abstracts of the available literature of various occupations, with annotated bibliographies. Titles include: Auto Mechanics, Banking, Beauty Culture, Bookkeeping, City and County Management, Dental Hygiene, Dietetics, Electrical Installation and Maintenance in Buildings, etc. which may be borrowed from the library of the Office of Education on interlibrary loan. BABSETTE, PHOEBE E. A study of the economic condition of Negro teachers in the rural elementary schools of Virginia. Master's, 1936. Hampton Institute. 41 p. ms. BELL, VIOLA M. Chemistry used in foods and nutrition courses. Doctor's, 1935. Ohio State University 84 p. BOLZAU, EMMA L. Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, her life and work. Doctor's, 1934. University of Pennsylvania. 534 p. BOYNTON, BERNICE. The physical growth of girls: a study of the rhythm of physical growth from an thropometric measurements on girls between birth and 18 years. Doctor's, 1935. University of Iowa. 105 p DOWELL, ANITA S. Physical disability of teachers in the white elementary schools of Baltimore, Md Doctor's, 1934. Johns Hopkins University. 98 p. GREEN, ETHEL D. High school law course and how to vitalize it. Master's, 1934. Boston University 308 p. ms. HANN, GEORGE D. Administration of the school and community health program of Clinton, Okla Master's, 1935. University of Oklahoma. 144 p. ms. HUMPHREYS, JOHN E. Study of the personnel of the rural school boards of Kansas. Master's, 1936. University of Kansas. 108 p. ms. JAMISON, ROY S. Historical fiction as an aid in the development of superior attitude and achievement in history. Master's, 1935. Pennsylvania State College. 41 p. ms. American KRISHNAYYA, STEPHEN G. Rural community and the school: the message of Negro and other American schools for India. Doctor's, 1933. Teachers College, Columbia University. 161 p. MULHERN, LOUISE. Motivation in the teaching of commercial subjects. Master's 1934. Boston University. 128 p. ms. NEYLAN, EDITH E. Building and use of objective tests in high-school economics. Master's, 1933. Boston University. 85 p. ms. O'CONNELL, FLORENCE M. Present-day methods of teaching economic geography. Master's, 1934 Boston University. 239 p. ms. O'DOWD, REV. JAMES T. Standardization and its influence on Catholic secondary education in the United States. Doctor's, 1935. Catholic University of America. 150 p. OERTEL, ERNEST E. Toward a new philosophy in educational administration. Doctor's, 1936. Teach ers College, Columbia University. 182 p. PEDERSEN, AXEL H. Study of teachers' meetings in North Dakota secondary schools. Master's, 1935. University of North Dakota. 83 p. ms. PHARES, EARL E. Self-rating scale for high-school principals. Master's, 1934. College of Emporia. 34 p. Kansas State Teachers PUGH, GERALD G. Education in farm-school insti tutions. Doctor's, 1936. Teachers College, Columbia University. 135 p. WILSON, THEODORE H. The 4-year junior college Doctor's, 1936. Harvard University. 541 p. ms. WOODS, DAVID S. Financing the schools of rural Manitoba. Doctor's, 1935. University of Chicago. T HE TEXTBOOK collection of the Office of Education library is a most unique feature of the library. It has reached considerable size and importance, as it has been growing consistently for a number of years. Due to the foresight of early administrators the project was started almost at the beginning of the library because they believed that a most interesting part of an education library would be the textbooks used in the schools from early days to the present time. It is the purpose of the present administrators to continue to build up this collection and to make it as complete as possible. Especially is it desirable to secure as many of the early American textbooks as possible, because these books are becoming increasingly scarce each year. Modern textbooks are coming in regularly, and that part of the collection is growing rapidly. We shall endeavor here to show something of the scope of the textbook collection, how it is growing, its value to research workers in the textbook field who are studying the development that has taken place in producing textbooks, and its value to teachers, graduate Martha R. McCabe, Assistant Librarian, Describes the Unusual Textbook Collection Developed Over a Period of Years by the Office of Education Library students, and school men generally who are interested in examining modern textbooks in order to select for their own purposes outstanding examples of the craft, and the output in textbooks for different levels and in different subject fields. For comparative purposes an exhibit of old and new books is always profitable, and to see these together is often most enlightening. We call this part of the library a "Museum of Textbooks." In order to make it in reality a museum it has been the plan for years to segregate it as a special collection, arrange the books by subjects, i. e., readers, arithmetics, geographies, etc., and according to date. In this way it will be easy to see at a glance changes and developments that during the years have taken place in size, paper, type, contents and treatment, illustrations, binding, etc., so that "he who runs may read." This collection will be a permanent museum exhibit, and research workers in the history of education in all its phases, and others interested in rare old books, may spend many profitable hours looking it through. There will eventually be some duplicates in this collection; until the textbooks have all been cataloged we will not know just how many; but the plan includes a duplicate collection that may be used more freely than the museum copies, which, because of their rarity and their frailty, should not be handled to the extent that a duplicate collection may be. In this way the service can be much increased. Its pathway difficult boxes when the library was in cramped The books in the textbook collection To state that a collection consists of so many thousand books does not mean much to the reader, but it does mean a great deal to one who is figuring how many stacks and shelves it will take to hold it, how many catalogers will be required, and how long it will take to It is estimated that the textcatalog it. book collection numbers upwards of Most of these are for the 25,000 books. public schools, elementary and secondary, but a considerable number are college texts. The old textbooks were not des ignated for certain grades, but only "for Arithmetics Beginning with arithmetics, we find a goodly representation of old ones published in the United States, and since those were the books used by the early Americans, we confine our list to them for the most part. One of the earliest was the "New complete system of arithmetic", by Nicholas Pike. This was a popular text and was given flattering testimonials by George Washington and other notables; we have several editions of this arithmetic, dated from 1788 to 1798. District school pupils, especially the girls, "ciphered through only the four fundamentals of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, usually with short excursions into vulgar fractions"," and it was said that one who was able to "cipher through Old Pike was to be accounted a prodigy." Other writers of arithmetics represented in this collection were: Ezekiel Little, The Usher, Comprising Arithmetic in Whole Numbers, 1799; John Vinall, The Freceptor's Assistant, 1792 (this arithmetic was dedicated to John Hancock and contains his autograph); Caleb Alexander, A New and Complete System of Arithmetic, 1802; Thomas Dilworth, the old reliable and popular writer of spellers, also wrote arithmetics and is here represented by several editions of The Schoolmaster's Assistant, a Compendium of Arithmetic, dated 1802, 1804, 1806; W. M. Finlay, The Arithmetical Magazine, 1803; Michael Walsh, A New System of Mercantile 1 Clifton Johnson: Old-Time Schools and School Books. Arithmetic, editions of 1801, 1804, 1807, 1814, 1822, and 1825; Nathan Daboll, The Schoolmaster's Assistant, Being a Plain, Practical System of Arithmetic, is here in editions of 1811, 1814, 1817, 1818, and 1825; Robert Gibson, A Treatise on Practical Surveying, and dated 1790 and 1803; John Bonnycastle, The Scholar's Guide to Arithmetic, 1818. For arithmetics used by American children, but published abroad, we have Edward Cocker's "Arithmetic, being a plain and familiar method suitable to the meanest capacity, for the full understanding of that incomparable art, as it is now taught by the ablest schoolmasters in city and country", which was published in Edinburgh in 1760; John Mair, Arithmetic, Rational and Practical, printed in London by Sands, Murray, Cochran, 1766; and Mr. Edmund Wingate's Arithmetick, containing a plain and familiar method for attaining the knowledge and practice of common arithmetick, a very old ninth edition, published in London in 1694, and in 1735, and 1760. The library copy of the 1694 edition, with its old leather binding, is still, after 242 years of existence, in fair condition. Spellers An equally interesting group of old spellers contains the following: George Fisher, The Instructor, or, Young Man's Best Companion, containing spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic, was published in London in 1757. Benjamin Franklin has given the world many books, among them The Franklin Spelling Book, published at Wilmington, Del., in 1822, and chronicled as a popular speller; Noah Webster's old blue-backed speller is here in two editions. It was first entitled "The American Spelling Book", dated 1816; then Webster's Old Spelling Book, 1817; and The Elementary Spelling Book, being an improvement on The American Spelling Book, dated 1857. These are bound in blue paper-covered pasteboard, and are spoken of as the "blue-backed spellers." We find numerous other famous old spellers mentioned by Clifton Johnson, in our collection, among them: William Perry, The Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue, or, Perry's New Pronouncing Spelling Book, 1818 and 1824; A. Pickett, The Juvenile Spelling Book, 1821; and David B. Tower, The Gradual Speller and Complete Enunciator, 1848. Geographies We are fortunate in possessing some of the oldest geographies written in this country. Perhaps the oldest writer of SCHOOL LIFE December 1936 |