SCHOOL-BOOKS
_The most worthless book of a bygone day is a record worthy of
preservation. Like a telescopic star, its obscurity may render
it unavailable for most purposes, but it serves in hands which
know how to use it to determine the places of more important
bodies._
--_A. de Morgan, 1847._
When any scholar could advance beyond hornbook and primer he was
ready for grammar. This was not English grammar, but Latin, and
the boy usually began to study it long before he had any book to
con. A bulky and wretched grammar called Lilly's was most popular
in England. Locke said the study of it was a religious observance
without which no scholar was orthodox. It named twenty-five
different kinds of nouns and devoted twenty-two pages of solid print
to declensions of nouns; it gave seven genders, with fifteen pages
of rules for genders and exceptions. Under such a régime we can
sympathize with Nash's outburst, "Syntaxis and prosodia! you are
tormentors of wit and good for nothing but to get schoolmasters
twopence a week."
It was said of Ezekiel Cheever, the old Boston schoolmaster, who
taught for over seventy years, "He taught us Lilly and he Gospel
taught." But he also wrote a Latin grammar of his own, _Cheever's
Accidence_, which had unvarying popularity for over a century.
Cheever was a thorough grammarian. Cotton Mather thus eulogized
him:--
"Were Grammar quite extinct, yet at his Brain
The Candle might have well been Lit again."
There was brought forth at his death a broadside entitled _The
Grammarian's Funeral_. A fac-simile of it is here given. Josiah
Quincy, later in life the president of Harvard College, wrote an
account of his dismal school life at Andover. He entered the school
when he was six years old, and on the form by his side sat a man
of thirty. Both began _Cheever's Accidence_, and committed to
memory pages of a book which the younger child certainly could not
understand, and no advance was permitted till the first book was
conquered. He studied through the book twenty times before mastering
it. The hours of study were long--eight hours a day--and this upon
lessons absolutely meaningless. [Ilustration:
The Grammarians Funeral,
OR,
An ELEGY compo[f.]ed upon the Death of Mr. _John Woodmancy_,
formerly a School-Ma[f.]ter in _Bo[f.]ton_: But now Publi[f.]hed
upon the DEATH of the Venerable
Mr. Ezekiel Chevers,
The late and famous School-Ma[f.]ter of _Bo[f.]ton_ in
_New-England_; Who Departed this Life the _Twenty-fir[f.]t_ of
_Augu[f.]t_ 1708. Early in the Morning. In the Ninety-fourth Year of
his Age.
Eight Parts of _Speech_ this Day wear _Mourning Gowns_
Declin'd _Verbs, Pronouns, Participles, Nouns_.
And not declined, _Adverbs_ and _Conjunctions_,
In _Lillies_ Porch they [f.]tand to do their functions.
With _Prepo[f.]ition_; but the mo[f.]t affection
Was [f.]till ob[f.]erved in the _Interjection_.
The _Sub[f.]tantive_ [f.]eeming the limbed be[f.]t,
Would [f.]et a hand to bear him to his Re[f.]t.
The _Adjective_ with very grief did [f.]ay,
Hold me by [f.]trength, or I [f.]hall faint away.
The Clouds of Tears did over-ca[f.]t their faces,
Yea all were in mo[f.]t lamentable _Ca[f.]es_.
The five _Declen[f.]ions_ did the Work decline,
And _Told_ the _Pronoun Tu_, The work is thine:
But in this ca[f.]e tho[f.]e have no call to go
That want the _Vocative_, and can't [f.]ay O!
The _Pronouns_ [f.]aid that if the _Nouns_ were there,
There was no need of them, they might them [f.]pare:
But for the [f.]ake of _Empha[f.]is_ they would,
In their Di[f.]cretion do what ere they could.
Great honour was confer'd on _Conjugations_,
They were to follow next to the _Relations_.
_Amo_ did love him be[f.]t, and _Doceo_ might
Alledge he was his Glory and Delight.
But _Lego_ [f.]aid by me he got his skill,
And therefore next the _Her[f.]e_ I follow will.
_Audio_ [f.]aid little, hearing them [f.]o hot,
Yet knew by him much Learning he had got.--
O _Verbs_ the _Active_ were, Or _Pa[f.][f]ive_ [f.]ure,
_Sum_ to be _Neuter_ could not well endure:
But this was common to them all to Moan
Their load of grief they could not [f.]oon _Depone_.
A doleful Day for _Verbs_, they look [f.]o _moody_,
They drove Spectators to a Mournful Study.
The _Verbs_ irregular, 'twas thought by [f.]ome,
Would break no rule, if they were plea[f.]'d to come.
_Gaudeo_ could not be found; fearing di[f.]grace
He had with-drawn, [f.]ent _Mæreo_ in his Place.
_Po[f.][f]um_ did to the utmo[f.]t he was able,
And bore as Stout as if he'd been A _Table_.
_Volo_ was willing, _Nolo_ [f.]ome-what [f.]tout,
But _Malo_ rather cho[f.]e, not to [f.]tand out.
_Po[f.][f]um_ and _Volo_ wi[f.]h'd all might afford
Their help, but had not an _Imperative Word_.
_Edo_ from Service would by no means Swerve,
Rather than fail, he thought the _Cakes_ to Serve.
_Fio_ was taken in a fit, and [f.]aid,
By him a Mournful P O E M [f.]hould be made.
_Fero_ was willing for to bear a part,
Altho' he did it with an aking heart.
_Feror_ excus'd, with grief he was [f.]o Torn,
He could not bear, he needed to be born.
Such _Nouns_ and _Verbs_ as we defective find,
No _Grammar_ Rule did their attendance bind.
They were excepted, and exempted hence,
But _Supines_, all did blame for negligence.
_Verbs_ Offspring, _Participles_ hand-in-hand,
Follow, and by the [f.]ame direction [f.]tand:
The re[f.]t Promi[f.]cuou[f.]ly did croud and cumber,
Such Multitudes of each, they wanted Number.
Next to the Corps to make th' attendance even,
_Jove, Mercury, Apollo_ came from heaven.
And _Virgil, Cato_, gods, men, Rivers, Winds,
With _Elegies_, Tears, Sighs, came in their kinds.
_Ovid_ from _Pontus_ ha[f.]t's Apparell'd thus,
In Exile-weeds bringing _De Tri[f.]tibus_:
And _Homer_ [f.]ure had been among the Rout,
But that the Stories [f.]ay his Eyes were out.
_Queens, Cities, Countries, I[f.]lands_, Come
All Trees, Birds, Fi[f.]hes, and each Word in _Um_.
What _Syntax_ here can you expect to find?
Where each one bears [f.]uch di[f.]compo[f.]ed mind.
Figures of Diction and Con[f.]truction,
Do little: Yet [f.]tand [f.]adly looking on.
That [f.]uch a Train may in their motion _chord_,
_Pro[f.]odia_ gives the mea[f.]ure Word for Word.
_Sic Mæ[f.]tus Cecinit_,
Benj. Tomp[f.]on.]
]
The custom was in Boston--until this century--to study through the
grammar three times before any application to parsing.
Far better wit than any found in an old-time jest book was the
sub-title of a very turgid Latin grammar, "A delysious Syrupe newly
Claryfied for Yonge Scholars yt thurste for the Swete Lycore of
Latin Speche."
The first English Grammar used in Boston public schools and retained
in use till this century, was _The Young Lady's Accidence, or a
Short and Easy Introduction to English Grammar, design'd principally
for the use of Young Learners, more especially for those of the Fair
Sex, though Proper for Either_. It is said that a hundred thousand
copies of it were sold. It was a very little grammar about four or
five inches long and two or three wide, and had only fifty-seven
pages, but it was a very good little grammar when compared with its
fellows, being simple and clearly worded.
The fashion of the day was to set everything in rhyme as an aid to
memory; and even so unpoetical a subject as English Grammar did not
escape the rhyming writer. In the _Grammar of the English Tongue_,
a large and formidable book in fine type, all the rules and lists
of exceptions and definitions were in verse. A single specimen, the
definition of a letter, will show the best style of composition,
which, when it struggled with moods and tenses, was absolutely
meaningless.
"A Letter is an uncompounded Sound
Of which there no Division can be Found,
Those Sounds to Certain Characters we fix,
Which in the English Tongue are Twenty-Six."
The spelling of that day was wildly varied. _Dilworth's Speller_ was
one of the earliest used, and the spelling in it differed much from
that of the British Instructor. A third edition of _The Child's New
Spelling Book_ was published in 1744. Famous English lesson-books
known among common folk as "Readamadeasies," and book traders as
"Reading Easies"--really Reading made easy--belied their name. Some
had alphabets on two pages because "One Alphabet is commonly worn
out before the Scholar is perfect in his Letters." It is interesting
to find "Poor Richard's" sayings in these English books, but it is
natural, too, when we consider Franklin's popularity abroad, and
know that broadsides printed with his pithy and worldly-wise maxims
were found hanging on the wall of many an English cottage.
[Illustration: 42
Reading Made Easy.
ceeds with all her train; warm gentle gales begin to blow, and soft
falling showers moisten the earth.——The surface of the
ground is adorned with young verdent flowers, the cowslip, daisy,
primrose, and a thousand pleasing objects spread themselves all
around; the trees put forth their green buds, and deck themselves
with blossoms; the birds fill every grove with the charming music
of nature; love, tunes their little voices, and they join in pairs
to build their nests with care and labour; which, sometimes the
playful, the careless, the giddy boy destroys. The careful farmer
now ploughs up his fields, and casts the seeds into the bosom of the
earth, and waits for harvest. Now too, the young and harmless lambs
skip over the grass in wanton play! The cuckoo sings--and all nature
seems to rejoice.
Trees, which dead did late appear,
Crown with leaves the rising year;
Ev'ry object seems to say,
Winter's gloom has pass'd away.
43
[Illustration: Farm couple with rakes and haying tools.]
SUMMER
Summer succeeds.--The sun now darts his beams with greater force,
and the days are at the longest. The flocks and herds not being able
to endure the scorching heat of the sun, retire beneath the shade of
some spreading tree, or the side of some cooling stream or river.
The wanton youths betake themselves to the waters and swim with
pleasure over the liquid surface. Early in the morning the careful
mower walks forth with his scythe on his shoulder, and sometimes
with a pipe in]
Not until the days of Noah Webster and his famous Spelling Book and
Dictionary was there any decided uniformity of spelling. Professor
Earle says the process of compelling a uniform spelling is a
strife against nature. Certainly it took a long struggle against
nature to make spelling uniform in America. In the same letter,
men of high education would spell the same word several different
ways. There was no better usage in England. The edition of Milton's
_Paradise Lost_ printed in 1688 shows some very grotesque spelling.
Therefore it is not strange to find a New York teacher advertising
to teach "writeing and spilling."
To show that a fetich was made of spelling seventy-five years ago, I
give this extract from a Danbury school notice:--
"The advantages that small children obtain at this school may
be easily imagined when the public are informed that those who
spell go through the whole of Webster's spelling book twice a
fortnight."
The teaching of spelling in many schools was peculiar. The master
gave out the word, with a blow of his strap on the desk as a signal
for all to start together, and the whole class spelled out the word
in syllables in chorus. The teacher's ear was so trained and acute
that he at once detected any misspelling. If this happened, he
demanded the name of the scholar who made the mistake. If there was
any hesitancy or refusal in acknowledgment, he kept the whole class
until, by repeated trials of long words, accuracy was obtained.
The roar of the many voices of the large school, all pitched in
different keys, could be heard on summer days for a long distance.
In many country schools the scholars not only spelled aloud but
studied all their lessons aloud, as children in Oriental countries
do to-day: and the teacher was quick to detect any lowering of
the volume of sound and would reprove any child who was studying
silently. Sometimes the combined roar of voices became offensive to
the neighbors of the school, and restraining votes were passed at
town-meetings.
The colonial school and schoolmaster took a firm stand on
"cyphering." "The Bible and figgers is all I want my boys to
know," said an old farmer. Arithmetic was usually taught without
text-books. Teachers had manuscript "sum-books," from which they
gave out rules and problems in arithmetic to their scholars. Abraham
Lincoln learned arithmetic from a "sum-book" of which he made a neat
copy. A page from this sum-book is here given in reduced size. Too
often these sums were copied by the pupil without any explanation
of the process being offered or rendered by the master. The artist
Trumbull recalled that he spent three weeks, unaided in any way,
over a single sum in long division.
[Illustration: Page from Abraham Lincoln's Sum Book]
A manuscript sum-book in my possession is marked, "Sarah Keeler her
Book, May ye 1st, A.D. 1773, Ridgbury." There are multiplication
examples of fifteen figures multiplied by fifteen, and long division
examples of a dividend of quintillions, chiefly in sevens and nines,
divided by a mixed divisor of billions in eights and fives--a
thing to make poor Sarah turn in her grave. There are Reductions
Ascending and Reductions Descending and Reductions both Ascending
and Descending at the same time, as complicated as the computations
of the revolutions of the celestial spheres. There are miserable
catch-examples about people's ages and others about collections of
excises, with "Proofs," and still others about I know not what, for
there are within their borders mysterious abbreviations and signs,
like some black magic. Sainted Sarah Keeler! a melancholy sympathy
settles on me as I regard this book and all the extended sums you
knew, and think of the paths of pleasantness of the present pupils
of kindergartens; and wonder what kind of a mathematical song or
game or allegory could be invented to disguise these very "plain
figures."
Sometimes a zealous teacher would write out tables of measures and a
few blind rules for his scholars. This amateur arithmetic would be
copied and recopied until it was punctuated with mistakes.
[Illustration:
Cocker's
ARITHMETICK:
BEING
A plain and familiar Method, [f.]uitable to the meane[f.]t Capacity,
for the full under[f.]tanding of that incomparable Art, as it is now
taught by the able[f.]t School-Ma[f.]ters in City and Country.
Composed
By _Edward Cocker_, late Practitioner in the Arts of Writing,
Arithmetick, and Engraving. Being that [f.]o long [f.]ince
promi[f.]ed to the World.
PERUSED and PUBLISHED
By _John Hawkins_, Writing-Ma[f.]ter near _St. George's_ Church in
_Southwark_, by the Author's correct Copy, and commended to the
World by many eminent Mathematicians and Writing-Ma[f.]ters in and
near _London_.
_This Impre[f.][f]ion is corrected and amended, with many Additions
throughout the whole._
Licen[f.]ed, Sept. 3. 1677. Roger L'E[f.]trange.
LONDON,
Printed by _R. Holt_, for _T. Pa[f.][f.]inger_, and [f.]old by _John
Back_, at the black Boy on _London-Bridge_, 1688.]
[Illustration:
No. 1 First Picture Alphabet.
No. 2. Second Picture Alphabet.
No. 3. Third Picture Alphabet.
No. 4. Lessons in One Syllable.
No. 5. Lessons in Numbers.
No. 6. Words in Common Use.
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve
I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
The Clock has two hands; a long one and a short one. The short hand
is the hour hand, and the long one is the minute hand.
The short or hour hand moves very slowly, and the long or minute
hand goes all round the Clock face while the hour hand goes from one
figure to the next one.
2
2
-
Two and two added together make 4
1
-
One and four together make 5
2
-
Five and two together make 7
1
-
Seven and one together make 8
2
-
What are eight and two? They make 10
10
-
Twice ten make 20
5
-
Twenty is a score, and five score 100
[Illustration: Battledore, "Lessons in Numbers"]
Many scholars never saw a printed arithmetic; and when the master
had one for circulation it was scarcely more helpful than the
sum-book. One of the most ancient arithmetics was written by the
mathematician Record, who lived from the year 1500 to 1558. He is
said to have invented the sign of equality =, but there is nothing
in his book to indicate this fact. The terms "arsemetrick" and
"augrime" are used in it, instead of arithmetic. Many curious and
obsolete rules are given, among them, "The Golden Rule," "Rule of
Falsehood," "The Redeeming of Pawnes of Geams," "The Backer Rule of
Thirds." Here is a simple problem under the latter:--
"I did lend my friend 3/4 of a Porteguise 7 months upon promise
that he should do as much for me again, and when I should borrow
of him, he could lend me but 5/12 of a Porteguese, now I demand
how long time I must keep his money in just Recompence of my
loan, accounting 13 months in the year."
Rhyme is used in this book, in dialogues between the master and
scholar. Copies of _Cocker's Arithmetick_ are said to be very rare
in England, but I have seen several in America. An edition was
published in Philadelphia in 1779. The frontispiece of English and
American editions shows the picture of the mathematician surrounded
by a wreath of laurel with the droll apostrophe:--
"Ingenious Cocker! Now to Rest thou 'rt Gone
Noe Art can Show thee fully but thine Own
Thy rare _Arithmetick_ alone can show
What vast Sums of Thanks wee for Thy Labour owe."
"Ingenious Cocker," as one would say "Most noble Shakespeare!" It
is hard indeed to idealize or write poetical tributes to one by the
name of Cocker. It gives us a sense of pleasant familiarity with
any one to know that he is "well acquaint" with one of our intimate
friends, so I feel much drawn to ingenious Cocker by knowing that
he was well known of Sam Pepys. He was a writing master, and did
some mighty fine engraving for Pepys, who calls him ingenuous, not
ingenious. It is rather a facer to learn from the notes in the Diary
that Cocker had nothing whatever to do with his Arithmetic, which
was a forgery by John Hawkins.
The age that would rhyme a grammar would rhyme an arithmetic, and
Record's example was followed and enlarged upon. Thomas Hylles
published one in 1620, _The Arte of Vulgar Arithmiteke_, written in
dialogue, with the rules and theorems in verse. This is an example
of his poesy:--
"THE PARTITION OF A SHILLING INTO HIS ALIQUOT PARTES.
"A farthing first finds forty-eight
A Halfpeny hopes for twentiefoure
Three farthings seeks out 16 streight
A peny puls a dozen lower
Dicke dandiprat drewe 8 out deade
Twopence took 6 and went his way
Tom trip a goe with 4 is fled
But Goodman grote on 3 doth stay
A testerne only 2 doth take
Moe parts a Shilling cannot make."
[Illustration: Noah Webster's "American Selection"]
In 1633 Nicholas Hunt added to his rules and tables an
"Arithmetike-Rithmeticall or the Handmaid's Song of Numbers," which
rhymes are simply unspeakable. These attempts did not end with the
seventeenth century. In 1801 Richard Vyse had a _Tutor's Guide_ with
problems in rhyme.
"When first the Marriage Knot was tied
Between my Wife and Me
My age did hers as far exceed
As three times three does three.
But when Ten years and half ten Years
We man and wife had been
Her age came up as near to mine
As eight is to sixteen.
Now tell me I pray
What were our Ages on our Wedding Day?"
The earliest date of the old rhyme,--
"Thirtie daies hath September, Aprill, June and November,
Februarie eight and twentie alone, all the rest thirtie and one."
is given by Halliwell as 1633. I have found it in an old arithmetic
printed in London in 1596. The lines beginning "Multiplication is
vexation," are not an outburst of modern students. They are found in
a manuscript dated 1570 circa.
"Multiplication is mie vexation
And Division quite as bad,
The Golden rule is mie stumbling stule,
And Practice makes me mad."
After the Revolution, in new and zealous Americanism, text-books
by American authors outsold English books. The blue-backed
spelling book of Noah Webster drove Perry and Dilworth from the
field. Bingham and Webster took advantage of the need of suitable
school-books and divided the field between them. Webster's Spelling
Book outstripped Bingham's _Child's Companion_, but Bingham's
Readers, such as _The American Preceptor_ and _The Columbian Orator_
held their ground against Webster's. Not one of Bingham's books
proved a failure. _The Columbian Orator_ contained seven extracts
from speeches of Pitt in opposition to the measures of George
III., it had speeches by Fox and Sheridan, part of the address of
President Carnot at the establishment of the French Republic, and
the famous speech of Colonel Barré on the Stamp Act.
Nicholas Pike of Newburyport, Massachusetts, wrote an arithmetic
that routed the English books of Cocker and Hodder. It was studied
by many persons now living. It had three hundred and sixty-three
barren rules, and not a single explanation of one of them. Many of
them would now be wholly unintelligible to scholars, though no more
antiquated than are the methods; for instance, this rule in Tare and
Trett:--
"Deduct the Tare and Trett. Divide the Suttle by amount given;
the Quotient will be the Cloff which subtract from the Suttle
the Remainder will be the Neat."
[Illustration: "The Little Reader's Assistant," by Noah Webster]
The tables of measures were longer than ours to-day; in measuring
liquids were used the terms anchors, tuns, butts, tierces,
kilderkins, firkins, puncheons, etc. In dry measure were pottles,
strikes, cooms, quarters, weys, lasts. Examples in currency were in
pounds, shillings, and pence; and doubtless helped to retain the use
of these terms in daily trade long after dollars had been coined in
America. This labored book, aided by the flattering testimonials of
Governor Bowdoin, of the Presidents of Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth
Colleges, and of that idolized American, George Washington, gained
wide acceptance.
I have examined with care a _Wingate's Arithmetic_ printed in
1620, which was used for over a century in the Winslow family
in Massachusetts. "Pythagoras his Table," is, of course, our
multiplication table. Then comes, the "Rule of Three," the "double
Golden Rule," the "Rule of Fellowship," the "Rule of False," etc.,
etc., ending with "Pastimes, a collection of pleasant and polite
Questions to exercise all the parts of Vulgar Arithmetick." Here is
one:--
"This Problem is usually propounded in this manner, viz. fifteen
_Christians_ and fifteen _Turks_ being at Sea in one and the
same Ship in a terrible Storm, & the Pilot declaring a necessity
of casting the one half of those Persons into the Sea, that
the rest might be saved; they all agreed that the persons to
be cast away should be set out by lot after this manner, viz.
the thirty persons should be placed in a round form like a
_Ring_, and then beginning to count at one of the Passengers,
and proceeding circularly, every ninth person should be cast
into the Sea, until of the thirty persons there remained only
fifteen. The question is, how those thirty persons ought to be
placed, that the lot might infallibly fall upon the fifteen
_Turks_ & not upon any of the fifteen _Christians_? For the
more easie remembering of the rule to resolve this question
shall presuppose the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, to signifie
five numbers to wit, (a) one, (e) two, (i) three, (o) four, and
(u) five; then will the rule it self be briefly comprehended in
these two following verses:--
From numbers, aid and art
Never will fame depart.
In which verses you are principally to observe the vowels, with
their correspondent numbers before assigned, and then beginning
with the _Christians_ the vowel _o_ (in _from_) signifieth that
four _Christians_ are to be placed together; next unto them,
the vowel _u_ (in _num_) signifieth that five _Turks_ are to be
placed. In like manner _e_ (in _bers_) denoteth 2 _Christians_,
_a_ (in _aid_) 1 _Turk_, _i_ (in _aid_) 3 _Christians_, _a_ (in
_and_) 1 _Turk_, _a_ (in _art_) 1 _Christian_, _e_ (in _ne_)
2 _Turks_, _e_ (in _ver_) 2 _Christians_, _i_ (in _will_)
3 _Turks_, _a_ (in _fame_) 1 _Christian_, _e_ (in _fame_) 2
_Turks_, _e_ (in _de_) 2 _Christians_, _a_ (in _part_) 1 _Turk_.
"The invention of the said Rule and such like, dependeth upon
the subsequent demonstration, viz. if the number of persons be
thirty, let thirty figures or cyphers be placed circularly or
else in a right line as you see:--
ooooooooooooooo."
I trust the little Winslows and their neighbors understood this sum,
and its explanation, and that the Christians were all saved, and the
Turks were all drowned.
Geography was an accomplishment rather than a necessary study,
and was spoken of as a diversion for a winter's evening. Many
objections were made that it took the scholar's attention away
from "cyphering." It was not taught in the elementary schools till
this century. _Morse's Geography_ was not written till after the
Revolution. It had a mean little map of the United States, only a
few inches square. On it all the land west of the Mississippi River
was called Louisiana, and nearly all north of the Ohio River, the
Northwestern Territory. Small as the book was, and meagre as was
its information, many of its pages were devoted to short, stilted
dialogues between a teacher and pupil, in which the scholar was made
to say such priggish sentences:--
"I am very thankful, sir, for your entertaining instruction, and
I shall never forget what you have been telling me.
"I long, sir, for to-morrow to come that I may hear more of your
information.
"I am truly delighted, sir, with the account you have given me
of my country. I wish, sir, it may be agreeable to you to give
me a more particular description of the United States.
"I hope, sir, I have a due sense of your goodness to me. I have,
sir, very cheerfully, and I trust very profitably, attended your
instructions."
A rather amusing _Geographical Catechism_ was published in 1796,
by Rev. Henry Pattillo, a Presbyterian minister of North Carolina,
for the use of the university students. It is properly and
Presbyterianly religious. It gives this explanation of comets:--
"Their uses are mere conjecture. Some judge them the seats of
punishment where sinners suffer the extremes of heat and cold.
Mr. Whiston says a comet approaching the sun brushed the earth
with its tail and caused the deluge, and that another will cause
the conflagration."
Let us not be too eager to jeer at these ancient school-books. Pope
wrote nearly two centuries ago:
"Still is to-morrow wiser than to-day
We think our fathers fools so wise we grow.
Our wiser sons no doubt will think us so."
Perhaps the series of text-books which have chased each other in and
out of our nineteenth-century public schools under the successive
boards of commissioners and school committees who have also flashed
briefly on our educational horizon, may cut no better figure two
centuries hence than do those of Lilly and Pike and Cocker.