An Old Textbook Has Some Things to Teach Us

An Old Textbook Has Some Things to Teach Us
Incremental learning utilizes lots of review and lays information out in a logical sequence that fosters independent learning. Odua Images/Shutterstock
Jeff Minick
Updated:
Recently, a New York couple, readers of The Epoch Times, sent me a 1914 edition of “Essentials of English: First Book.” As stated in the book’s preface, the authors, Henry Carr Pearson and Mary Frederika Kirchwey, both associated with Horace Mann School of Columbia University, intended their textbook for “use in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades of the elementary school.”

“Essentials” is unremarkable in its physical appearance. It features a few paintings and photographs, and some drawings, but nothing comparable to the illustrations in our modern readers and grammars. Approximately 5 by 7 inches, its exterior is small, drab, and worn, so much so that it’s impossible to tell whether the original cover was green or blue.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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