While awareness of the existence of globes was commonplace, the use of them was rare. Many of the schools were forced to report, as did one in Killingly, Connecticut: "We have no globes . . . of any kind." "37 Many educators saw this as unmerited neglect; for example, the writer mentioned in the paragraph above:

...

And yet, so far as the knowledge and information of the speaker extend, these useful implements of learning are not to be found in many schools claiming to be well furnished with the means of instruction, and in many others, where they are found, are but little used, and that in a very superficial

manner.

There seems to have been two basic reasons for the neglect in the use of the globe: the relative high expense of the article; and the shortage of teachers trained to use them and lack of suitable textbooks to instruct untrained teachers in their use.

The first reason was by far the larger one. This gave rise to a "doit-yourself" movement in which educators admonished teachers with the idea that illustrating the earth as a sphere was the only important thing and the purchase of an expensive school apparatus was not essential for this. The problem was summed up by one lecturer in this way:

If unprovided with an artificial globe, he [the teacher] could not think even to buy an orange, and draw upon it with his pen an outline of the continents-much less, besides this; to take off the rind, and illustrate the projection of maps.30

Another writer told how he solved the problem in an inexpensive way:

I advise you to have a globe. [Then he says sarcastically.] You cannot expect to obtain one from your school committee, but you can have a large wooden ball made, upon which you can yourself paste white paper, and draw anything you wish.

A still cheaper method came from Dwight's School-Masters Friend: You have seen pumpkin lanterns-yes, and you have made them too. Well let nothing prevent you from having a globe of some kind or other in the school.

He then proceeds to tell the teacher how to hollow out the pumpkin and make a globe.

Maps

In the more progressive schools, maps were extensively used as this remark by a Massachusetts' educator in 1841 shows: "We have

7 Report of school visitors in Connecticut Common School Journal (1841), p. 197. 38 Fleming, op. cit., p. 164.

Adams, op. cit., p. 345.

maps, charts, and atlases greatly multiplied and introduced into all our schools."

99 40

In the outlying district schools, however, the use of maps was probably even more rare than the use of globes. Expense was one reason. Moreover, the technology of mapmaking was still relatively crude, and the teacher by free hand could sketch a map that would serve the purpose as well as the inferior wood-cut or copper-cut maps. Thus many of the maps in the schools were drawn by teachers. The following excerpt from an 1838 journal describes the process.

...

Those who have used outline maps in the study of geography, can need no recommendation of them. . . . Outline maps may be readily made and at a very small expense, by tracing the boundaries, rivers, lakes, mountains, etc., on one or more square yards of coarse white muslin, omitting the names. A camel's hair pencil may be used, with a mixture of lamp black, Gum Arabic, and water. The gum will prevent the fluid from spreading, even on unseized paper."

The Abacus and the Numeral Frame

This apparatus, known by many names, came into general use during this period to offer a new dimension in math instruction. In 1830, Adams described it and listed it as one of the four essential apparatuses for the classroom of his day.

The Abacus-this consists of a square frame, divided by ten strong wires, each of which passes through ten painted wooden balls, easily movable from one end to the other. This instrument is highly useful in illustrating the various combinations of numbers."

Sometimes the apparatus was advertised as a numeral frame; at other times as a counter. An 1866 edition of an educational journal called it the Arithmetican.48

An idea of the simplicity of the item can be gotten from this article from an 1842 journal telling the teacher how to make his own numeral frame.

For our purposes, an old slate frame will answer very well. The vertical sides should be pierced for 11 wires, 10 of which should be at equal distance, the eleventh further apart-say double the distance. On each wire should be placed 10 beads, half of one color and half of another-say blue and yellow-arranged as follows: 3 yellow, 2 blue, 2 yellow, 3 blue. Thus we shall have 100 beads, on 10 wire.“

In this way the child could cipher any number under 1,000.

40 Fleming, op. cit., p. 164.

41 Connecticut Common School Journal, Dec. 1838, p. 38.

42 Adams, op. cit., p. 346.

43 American Journal of Education, Vol. XVI (1866), p. 577. "Connecticut Common School Journal (Feb. 1842), p. 49.

The most practical teachers soonest see that pupils, who have been through
the arithmetic quite understandingly, will often fail to perform correctly ex-
amples of only moderate length in the fundamental rules. Business men find
that in almost every case, young men, fresh from school, cannot be depended
on to add columns of figures correctly and rapidly. The fact is, that the
usual school arithmetics contain examples sufficient to illustrate the rules, but
far too few for proper drill, or practice. The science is taught, but pupils
do not like to review the old pages, and teachers have not time to write new
examples on the blackboard; hence pupils fail to acquire, at school, the prac-
tical art of combining numbers rapidly. Practice in the counting-room may
remedy the defect, but only at the cost of expensive mistakes and much val-
uable time. Therefore, progressive educators will be pleased to find an ap-
paratus which provides, at a moment's notice, an exhaustless store of exam-
ples in all the fundamental rules, and which, doubtless, is the most useful and
practical article for common schools that has been invented within ten years,

THE PATENT ARITHMETICAL FRAME, imperfectly represented in the cut below.

It consists of eighteen slats, which re-
volve, having on each side eight figures,
large enough to be read at a distance of
forty feet, and giving over half a mil
lion examples in Addition, Subtraction,
Multiplication, Division, Decimals, Fed-
eral Money and Reduction, without the
necessity of the teacher's writing a figure
on the blackboard. School officers by
putting it into their schools, say to
teachers, "We furnish you the means
with which to teach our children practi
cally for business," and this is just what
intelligent teachers desire to do. If any
hesitate because of expense, let such
consider how little it costs for each of the
many hundreds taught from it; for it is
not worn out by handling, as books are,
but is as good for future classes as for
the present. It costs, with a key, $4.50

Several teachers who have used this apparatus, have expressed themselves
as follows: "We are using it with great satisfaction;" "I can do the work of
two men with it;" "In fact I could not get along without it," &c. We com-
mend it with entire confidence, and add, on the following page, the more com-
plete description and methods of using given by the manufacturers.

This Frame is equivalent to a movable blackboard, having examples
always set, but changeable in an instant, when desired.

With young pupils the teacher may divide the 18 slats of the frame
into 6 examples in Addition, or as many in Subtraction. As soon as these
are performed, by turning one slat in cach as many different ones are shown;
after which, by revolving the other slat in each, the same number of new
examples are again given; and an equal number more may be presented by
turning the former alats to their original positions. Thousands of other
examples, either long or short, may be given in Addition and Subtraction,
as shown in the key.

For Multiplication cach slat is a multiplicand, and any desired multi+
plier for each may be named by the teacher-as 3, or 25, or 408, etc. This
gives in a breath 18 examples having the same multiplier-enough for a day's
sson. As pupils become more proficient, larger multipliers are named, to
any desired extent.

In Division cach slat is a dividend, and proper divisors are given by the
teacher. It is evident there is no limit to the number and variety of exam-
ples that may thus be given.

The Key contains very many suitable examples, with answers in all the
various rules; but teachers can give thousands of others, and it will be prac
tically a safe rule to consider any answer correct in which half or a third of
the class agree.

In well graded Primary Schools there will be little need of
arithmetics at first, for sufficient examples for the day can be given by one
arrangemont of the frame.

For older Pupils the frame will furnish, by cach different arrangement,
18 examples (either simple or difficult as the teacher may choose), which may
bo performul as extra work by the active pupils, who always complete the
class lesson in the book and have idle time. For such overwork merit-marks
may be given, according to the number of examples performed.

The Combinations of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and
Division are excellent for this purpose, and also for review lessons, as the
various answers will show in what rules the pupil is most liable to make errors.
In Reduction each slat represents so many of the lowest denomination in
any table, as ounces, or gills, etc., which the pupil must reduce to the highest,
and prove his work by reducing this answer back to the lowest denomination.
Federal Money and Decimals aro amply provided for in the
key, and more examples may be given as readily as in whole numbs.

A very useful Exercise is, to set the frame and have all the pupils in
a class commence at the same instant to work the example, each striving to be
the first to have it correctly done. The older pupils in grammar and high
sehools will be interested and greatly profited by frequent trials of this kind.

Schools of every grade will find the frame well adapted to their wants.
It will be used more hours in a day, and more days in every week, than any
gobe or set of maps costing five times as much. It will soon save its cost
in the time of the teacher; it will save its cost in crayons; it will soon save
its cost in books. Hence it is presented to school officers as the most useful,
the most economical, and the most truly labor-saving piece of school appa

Arithmetical Frame Teaching Device from American School Apparatus Co. Catalogue New York

(1867) p. 12.

The Textbook Movement

Webster and McGuffey

The Revolutionary War interrupted trade with Great Britain and made school books extremely scarce. One young schoolmaster of the times, in Orange County, New York, decided a home source of textbooks was needed. In 1783, Noah Webster published a spelling book which evolved into the famous Webster's Blue Back that set the pace for American texts for the next quarter century. In 1785, only two years after its publication, it was selling at the rate of 500 copies a week. By 1818, 5,000,000 copies had been sold and for 40 years after that it was selling at the rate of 1,000,000 copies a year.*

45

Technologically, Webster's Blue Back represented no new improvements. The type was movable (set by hand) and not always too clear. The work was bound by hand and until 1829 consisted of a back of leather and sides of thin oaken boards pasted over with a dull blue paper. It was this bluish paper that gave rise to the nickname Blue Back.

The book contained crude wood-cut illustrations. One edition was embellished with a dreadful woodcut of Noah Webster which made him look like a porcupine and was described by critics of the day as "being so ugly it scares the children from their lessons." 46 Textual material was about on the same level and mainly aimed at moralizing.

Webster's Blue Back gave rise to a whole hoard of imitations. The first text to seriously rival it was the famous McGuffey Reader. Originally, William Holmes McGuffey had written a beginning reader for Truman & Smith of Cincinnati, in 1830. In 1841, he and his brother, Alexander, had completed a series through the Fifth Reader. These readers came to be the literary bible of the Middle West, the South, and parts of the East up to New England. The Readers were continuously revised, and by 1920 estimated sales were placed at 122,000,000. It is still on the market.

McGuffey's Readers at first had all the crudeness of the earlier texts. However, as it lasted the whole century each new edition benefited from technological changes. For example, the first editions of McGuffey's Reader in 1836 and 1837 were printed from movable type. But by 1800, stereotyping had been invented by Stanhope and by 1840 had come into general use. Editions of the Readers after 1840 were printed from plates. This possibily accounts for the greater circulation of McGuffey's Reader, which was much larger than any of its

45 Johnson, op. cit., pp. 168-169.

48 Ibid.

645520 - 634

earlier competitors. In the 1860's, the book adopted the new electrotyping process of printing.

Other Milestones in Texts

While Webster and McGuffey dominated the textbook movement of this period, several other textbooks made new technological contributions. Peter Parley's Method of Telling About Geography, published in 1829, had the important innovation of flexible pasteboard sides. His National Geography, published in 1845, was the earliest to take the large, flat shape. This enabled the inclusion of good-sized maps and eliminated the necessity for a separate atlas.

Also, a certain Arnold Guyot, a Swiss immigrant, caused in 1848, a minor revolution in the geography text field if not in map making in general. In 1862, he wrote his first geography for Charles Scribner & Sons which utilized illustrations and maps more than had any book published before. It appears he also introduced the technique of map coloring to indicate elevation (green for sea level, etc.). The political divisions of the countries were traced in red lines. These innovations were destined to win much praise from foreign educators at international exhibitions during the next half century."

Photographic Illustrations in Texts

In the mid-1800's, the new art of photography was reaching an advanced state of development, and educators and technicians began to use photographs to illustrate texts. Some tried filtering sunlight through the negative to yield etchings on copper or steel and then printing from the plate in the ordinary way. Sir David Brewster of Scotland suggested that the new process of galvanography could give the photographs the permanence of engravings and then could be used in the illustration of educational works. 48 Others sought to attach the photographs directly.

In 1856, the first serious attempt to illustrate a text with the extensive use of photography was made by John W. Draper in his Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical. The illustrations were printed from copper plates, which the artist had prepared from photographs.

47 Manual of Geographical Teaching, A Discussion of the Principles Underlying Guyot's Methods, New York, Scribner, Armstrong & Co. (1870), pp. 14-16.

48 Sir David Brewster, The Stereoscope, Its History, Theory, and Construction With Its Application to the Fine and Useful Arts and to Education, London; John Murray (1856), p. 196.