TITLE-PAGE OF DILWORTH'S "A NEW GUIDE TO THE ENGLISH TONGUE" (First edition, 1740) THE ENGLISH SCHOOL-MASTER.. age foever, the most eafy, thort, and perfect or- And further alfo, teacheth a direct course, how any are ignorant in the Lalin Tongue. In the next Page the School-Mafter hangeth forth his Table TITLE-PAGE OF COOTE'S "ENGLISH SCHOOL-MASTER" (First edition, 1596) FIG. 54. TITLE-PAGES OF THE EARLIEST ENGLISH SPELLING-BOOKS AND SCHOOLMASTER'S MANUALS The book by Thomas Dilworth appeared in 1740, and at once became very popular in both Old and New England. It was more secular in character than any of its predecessors and contained numerous graded lists of words for spelling, a series of graded reading lessons, and some illustrations. The title-page gives the outline of contents of the book. In an edition of Dilworth's Schoolmaster's Assistant in the possession of the author, published in 1797, there appears, after the title-page and two long dedicatory prefaces, two poems eulogizing the author for his great services. One, signed by William Deane, dated at Halifax, October 20, 1765, and addressed "To Mr. Thomas Dilworth, on his Schoolmaster's Assistant," is as follows: DILWORTH, the man by gracious Heaven design'd, A friend, a father to the human kind; Fain would my muse discharge the debt of praise, Learning, the glory of Britannia's isle, So the kind sun, with all reviving ray, 230. Noah Webster's Description of Pre-Revolutionary Schools (Letter, in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. XXVI, pp. 195–96) In response to a request, Noah Webster sent Mr. Barnard the following letter. Mr. Webster was born in Connecticut, in 1758, so that the schools he describes are those of the decade preceding the outbreak of the American Revolution. MR. BARNARD: New Haven, March 10, 1840 Dear Sir - You desire me to give you some information as to the mode of instruction in common schools when I was young, or before the Revolution. . . . When I was young, the books used were chiefly or wholly Dilworth's Spelling Books, the Psalter, Testament, and Bible. No geography was studied before the publication of Dr. Morse's small books on that subject, about the year 1786 or 1787. No history was read, as far as my knowledge extends, for there was no abridged history of the United States. Except the books above mentioned, no book for reading was used before the publication of the Third Part of my Institute, in 1785. In some of the early editions of that book I introduced short notices of the geography and history of the United States, and these led to more enlarged descriptions of the country. In 1788, at the request of Dr. Morse, I wrote an account of the transactions in the United States, after the Revolution; which account fills nearly twenty pages in the first volume of his octavo editions. Before the Revolution, and for some years after, no slates were used in common schools: all writing and operations in arithmetic were on paper. The teacher wrote the copies and gave the sums in arithmetic; few or none of the pupils having any books as a guide. Such was the condition of the schools in which I received my early education. The introduction of my Spelling Book, first published in 1783, produced a great change in the department of spelling; and, from the information I can gain, spelling was taught with more care and accuracy for twenty years or more after that period, than it has been since the introduction of multiplied books and studies. No English grammar was generally taught in common schools when I was young, except that in Dilworth, and that to no good purpose. In short, the instruction in schools was very imperfect, in every branch; and if I am not misinformed, it is so to this day, in many branches. Indeed there is danger of running from one extreme to another, and instead of having too few books in our schools, we shall have too many. I am, sir, with much respect, your friend and obedient servant, N. WEBSTER 231. Teachers in Gotha in 1741 (From the German of Karl von Raumer; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. xx, p. 584) Though Duke Ernest the Pious (1640-75) had raised little Gotha to a place of first importance by his educational reforms (R. 163), the reforms he instituted were not carried forward after his death, and by 1741 we find the school conditions there as in dicated by the following "Circular of the Consistory of Gotha" regarding teachers, under date of September 11, 1741. We have, with great displeasure, perceived that a great many persons make teaching their profession without sufficient cultivation of their faculties. Many of the teachers have employed incapable masters to teach them a little instrumental and vocal music, which is not an important requisite, but they are unable to awaken in the children's heads a true understanding of the Catechism, unable to jot down the sermon, to hear the children recite, much more unable to give instruction about any thing in nature. They know little of penmanship and arithmetic, and yet, in spite of their ignorance, twenty apply for one vacancy in a school, because, as they say, they have learned nothing else by which to make a living. They do so from love of a comfortable life, and from fear of the plough; but this must and shall be stopped, and our most gracious duke has therefore pleased to decree that you (superintendents) are required to select teachers from young men of ability, who will devote themselves for life and with enthusiasm to this work, and to reject bungling boys, &c. How little such decrees effected, and how little power the consistory possessed to give force to such decrees, is shown by the number of monitory decrees of October 11, 1746; July 7, 1750; October 2, 1750; April 16, 1760. The chairs of the teachers remained occupied by the poorest pupils of the gymnasium, discharged corporals, bankrupt tradesmen, and, above all, by servants of the household of a count (patron of a school) who had outlived their usefulness in the family. These brought the oncecelebrated Gotha schools into discredit. 232. Description of an Eighteenth-Century Swedish People's School (From the German of Karl von Raumer; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. XXII, p. 701) The following selection, taken from an article on the history of education in Sweden, describes the elementary vernacular school of that country at the close of the seventeenth century. The description also remained true of such schools well through the eighteenth century. Educational reform in Sweden did not begin until after 1800, and came in part as a result of the introduction of the English monitoria system into the schools of neighboring Denmark 1 The leaders of the so-called Period of Freedom manifested much interest in popular enlightenment. In a letter dated February 19, 1768, the governors of the provinces and the consistories were called on to suggest how the instruction of the peasant children could be better organized, how school-houses could be erected, the support of schoo!teachers obtained, and good school regulations generally could be drawn up. These suggestions, such as they were, were not carried out, for during the whole eighteenth century not more than one hundred and sixty-five stationary schools were established; the instruction outside of their localities being imparted in village schools (Dorfschulen) which had no abiding place, the teachers being often very ignorant, and not unfrequently graceless scamps, drunkards, or ruined people, and both subjects and methods being extremely limited and defective. However, the school fees were very small, being two, three, or four skillings a week for children learning to read, and six to eight for those who studied writing and ciphering. A Swedish popular school in the seventeenth century presented a peculiar aspect. The discipline was rough, the punishments barbarous. The school was gathered in an ordinary peasant's room, where the occupants carried on their domestic occupations; at the end of the great dining-table sat the teacher, called "master," and near by sat the little children, or "A B C pupils," on stools or benches without any backs, while a little farther away, according to their proficiency, sat the other scholars with their books in their laps; only the few who were learning to cipher and write sat at the master's table. The text-books consisted of the Horn-Book, the Greater and the Lesser Catechisms, together with the Hymn-Book. When the pupil had mastered the art of reading in these three books, and had learned the Catechism by heart without any test of his understanding it he was ready to graduate, and the teacher was dispensed with. Occasionally children of bright parts or whose parents were in better circumstances, were taught to write and cipher, but copies and manuals, with the proper solutions, were not used, which occasioned great waste of time. This picture is dark, but accurate, even far into the present century. 233. Schools of Frankfurt-am-Main during the Eighteenth Century (From the German of Karl von Raumer; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. XXII, p. 736) The following extract from a history of education in Frankfurtam-Main, one of the "Free Hanseatic German Cities," gives an interesting picture of the schools and of the limited educational conditions which must have existed in the eighteenth century in one of the important cities in German lands. In this form (1591) the Frankfort school system remained, in all |