Education as we know it today would not have been possible without readily available printed textbooks and other supportive materials. Printing presses made mass production possible and eventually supplanted the transmission of knowledge via oral repetition and written manuscripts. In the nineteenth century, stereotyping, steam power, mechanical typecasting and typesetting, and improvements in illustration reproduction made possible the proliferation of texts like Gray’s First Lessons in Botany and Davies’ School Arithmetic. Today, as electronic versions replace physical texts, old primers, alphabet books, and textbooks have become nostalgic collectibles and historic artifacts. These books guided children through structured curricula, but learning didn’t stop at the school room door. Publishers, including the American Tract Society and the Southern Methodist Publishing House, produced a steady stream of titles whose purpose was the moral education of youth, nudging generations of children along the path towards responsible adulthood and good citizenship.
Reading and writing instruction, traditional cornerstones of 19th century primary education, fueled an increasing demand for printed texts. By the 18th century, simple primers were being printed in the United States and increasing numbers of children memorized their contents. Noah Webster’s “blue backed speller” supplanted primers in the 1790s and introduced the idea of graduated lessons which moved children along through phases of mastery. In 1836, a new series of graded readers edited by the McGuffey brothers appeared in print and these textbooks would go on to sell 120 million copies between 1836 and 1960, shaping the skills and values of generations of Americans.
Not all education and instruction of youth happened in the classroom. Moral and character-building lessons embedded in printed stories were served up as leisure reading. The American Tract Society, founded in 1825, published pamphlets and books using a system of traveling salesmen to distribute them widely. According to a brief history of the tract society written in 1857, they used the press to evangelize the masses by reaching emigrants out in the new territories, combating the “noxious issues” put out by secular presses, and addressing the inadequate supply of ministerial instruction. The charming illustrations no doubt made the book’s lessons more palatable.
This unpretentious book on botany is part of the formidable body of work produced by botanist, writer, and teacher, Asa Gray. Discussions of his contributions to natural history are outside the scope of this exhibition but his understanding of the multi-faceted role printed books play in the dissemination of knowledge embodies the theme of this exhibition. Gray, an avid reader and prolific writer, published the definitive scientific work on North American botany, but he didn’t use the press to reach only his peers, he also crafted texts for students featuring accessible language and accurate drawings of specimens by Isaac Sprague. Earlier in his career, Gray was tasked with purchasing books in Europe for the University of Michigan’s library. One of the titles chosen was Audubon’s The Birds of America, purchased for an eye-popping sum of $970, around $30,000 in today’s dollars. Another episode from Gray’s life demonstrates how printing presses distributed seminal ideas, like the theory of evolution, with remarkable efficiency. Darwin published On the Origin of Species on November 24, 1859, in London. By Christmas, Gray had his copy in hand in the United States.
While both texts provide some useful information about anatomy, physiology and health, their emphasis on alcohol avoidance is impossible to ignore. Both were published by the American Book Company and endorsed by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Health for Little Folks is peppered throughout with boldface injunctions against the bad influence of alcohol on every facet of bodily functions.
This text is based on one written by Jane Marcet (1769-1858), a wealthy Londoner whose studies led her to write one of the first basic science textbooks, a book for girls on chemistry. Jones’s revision retains the dialogue format but adapts the content for schoolroom use. Many titles produced for the American market originated in England, demonstrating how printing presses facilitated the conveyance of texts and ideas across the Atlantic.
Geology was one of numerous subjects taught in secondary schools. Special Collections doesn’t have, as one of its collecting foci, historical textbooks, but a few have found their way onto our shelves by various means including donations. These two examples came to us via the Murfree family. We don’t know whether they were used at home or in the classroom but an inscription in Dana’s book suggests the latter. Comstock published on botany, chemistry, mineralogy, natural history, and physiology, often using the work of others (including Jane Marcet) as the basis for his own. Modern readers will find his discussion of the “days of creation” particularly stimulating. Dana’s reputation as a scientist distinguishes him from Comstock as does his longevity in print: his Manual of Mineralogy is in its 23rd revised edition (2007). Advertisements on the endpapers in Dana’s book reflect the active nineteenth-century printing and publishing world.
