By the mid-nineteenth century, with the expansion of public elementary schools (common schools), some reformers advocated better formal education for teachers. They noted the establishment of "Écoles normales" of normal schools in France and similar institutions in Prussia and parts of Great Britain. Philanthropic individuals, state legislatures, and teachers established a range of public and private normal schools, most of which enrolled female students. Ambitious educators found positions teaching and administering such institutions, and authoring suitable textbooks. One of them was Edward Brooks (1831-1912). Brooks had little formal education, having attended one session of Liberty Normal Institute in New York state and continued his studies briefly at the University of Northern Pennsylvania. There he quickly was made part of the faculty. From 1855 to 1883, Brooks was associated with newly established Pennsylvania State Normal School at Millersville (now Millersville University). He began as a professor and became president of the institution. At Millersville, Brooks wrote a sefies of mathematics textbooks for normal school students on such topics as arithmetic (several textbooks, from 1858), geometry (from 1865), and algebra (from 1874). He also would publish more general pedagogical works and volumes on teaching reading, elocution, and music. He also would be granted an honorary master's degree and honorary doctorates.
This particular book is the 1899 printing of the revised edition of Brooks' The Normal Elementary Arithmetic. . . . The first version of the book had appeared in 1866 and the revision is copyrighted 1888. The introduction provides suggestions for teachers. Brooks believed that study of his book would not train the pupil "to labor like a machine" but rather "teach pupils to think as well as to work problems." The volume includes an appendix on the metric system.
The book is signed in ink inside the front cover: Mary Donnelly. Unfortunately, there is no information about where she lived.
References:
"Edward Brooks," National Cyclopedia of American Biography, vol. 1, p. 423-424.
Geraldine J. Clifford, Those Good Gertrudes: A Social History of Women Teachers in America, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, esp. 178-187.
During the 1950s, the Belgian teacher Emile-Georges Cuisenaire designed a set of rods to teach about numbers and basic arithmetic. Caleb Gattegno popularized his methods in Great Britain and the United States. This small paperback, Book C of Gattegno’s explanation, was copyrighted in 1958 and 1961.
For a set of Cuisenaire rods, see 1987.0542.01. For related documentation see 1987.0542.02 through 1987.0542.07.
For further information about the donor of the materials, see 1987.0542.01.
During the 1950s, the Belgian teacher Emile-Georges Cuisenaire designed a set of rods to teach about numbers and basic arithmetic. John V. Trivett, a mathematics educator trained in England, wrote two paperback books to introduce teachers to the use of Cuisenaire rods. This is the revised edition of the first of them, copyrighted in 1962 and published by the Cuisenaire Company of America, then in Mount Vernon, New York. Trivett would go on to become a professor of education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
For a set of Cuisenaire rods, see 1987.0542.01. For related documentation see 1987.0542.02 through 1987.0542.07.
For further information about the donor of the materials, see 1987.0542.01.
This book is dated 1862, but it was first published at least as early as 1858. It may have been prepared by Joseph Ray before his death in 1855. Test Examples was to be an accompaniment to the third volume of Ray's arithmetic textbooks. The content is evenly balanced between computations and story problems. Despite the historical interpretation of Ray as playing a role in education similar to William McGuffey's, these exercises do not appear to impart moral lessons. Nonetheless, there are some subjects of interest in the story problems, from the mixture of medicines-including morphine-on page 41 to determining the price of beer on page 44 to more artificial topics such as adding together the fractions of a book read by a student over the course of a year on page 63. Another oddity is that, in the sections on finance, there are considerably more problems dealing with selling land or goods at a loss than with calculating a monetary gain.
This copy was electrotyped; that is, a wax mold of the type was dusted with graphite to impart an electrical charge and then coated with copper to make the final form. The boards of this book were covered with a paper lithograph rather than with leather. Although it is now very worn, the lithograph originally depicted a student performing multiplication at the blackboard before three other students and his male teacher. Everyone is holding a textbook.
This copy was signed by Burke Corbet and Myrta Corbett and stamped by German Snyder. There is a hand-drawn map of the western United States inside the front cover. There are childish scribbles, pencil marks of particular problems, and penciled answers throughout the book but especially after page 100. Pages 133-134 have been torn out; the lower half of pages 135-136 is missing.
Nineteenth century school children (and their parents) bout the textbooks they used and signed their names in them. Sometimes these were used – perhaps inherited from an older brother or sister. Census and other data suggests that these were Pennsylvania native Myrta Corbet (or Corbett -1857-1918) and her older brother Burke Corbett. A third signature is that of German Snyder – perhaps the New York state resident by that name who lived from 1869 to 1952.
This cut and folded tan paper model has a hexagon on the top and the bottom and twelve isoceles triangles around the sides.The side triangles have their bases on alternate hexagons.
A mark on the model reads: Miss Daily.
Compare 304723.146, 1979.0102.345, 1979.0102.346, MA.304723.462, and MA.304723.675.
Lena Mae Daily (1904-1973) was an undergraduate at Brown University's Women's College who took a course from Wheeler in the spring of 1925. She sent him a letter in July of that year showing several models she had made (see 1979.3009.110) Daily would go on to get an M.A. in mathematics at Brown in 1932, and to teach mathematics in the Warwick, Rhode Island, school system from 1926 until her marriage to Allie C. Aldrich in 1942. For models by Daily, see 1979.0102.260, MA.304723.493, and probably MA.304723.676.
Reference:
Brown Alumni Monthly, vol. 74, #4, January, 1974, p. 51.
A stellation of a regular polyhedron is a polyhedron with faces formed by extending the sides of the faces of the regular polyhedron. For example, if one extends the sides of a regular pentagon, one can obtain a five-pointed star or pentagram. Considering the union of the twelve pentagrams formed from the twelve pentagonal faces of a regular dodecahedron, one obtains this surface, known as a great stellated dodecahedron. It also could be created by gluing appropriate triangular pyramids to the faces of a regular icosahedron – there are a total of sixty triangular faces.
The great stellated dodecahedron was published by Wenzel Jamnitzer in 1568. It was rediscovered by Johannes Kepler and published in his work Harmonice Mundi in 1619. The French mathematician Louis Poinsot rediscovered it in 1809, and the surface and three related stellations are known as a Kepler-Poinsot solids.
This tan paper model of a great stellated dodecahedron is marked: L. MAE DAILY '26 (/) Apr. 24, '25
Compare MA.304723.084, MA.304723.085, 1979.0102.016, and 1979.0102.253.
Lena Mae Daily (1904-1973) was an undergraduate at Brown University's Women's College who took a course from Wheeler in the spring of 1925. She sent him a letter in July of that year showing several models she had made (see 1979.3009.110) Daily would go on to get an M.A. in mathematics at Brown in 1932, and to teach mathematics in the Warwick, Rhode Island, school system from 1926 until her marriage to Allie C. Aldrich in 1942. For models by Daily, see 1979.0102.260, MA.304723.493, and probably MA.304723.676.
References:
Brown Alumni Monthly, vol. 74, #4, January, 1974, p. 51.
Robinson’s Progressive Primary Arithmetic for Primary Classes in Public and Private Schools is part of Robinson’s Series of Mathematics, and contains simple lessons for young children on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and fractions. The lessons consist largely of word and practical problems, some with illustrations on currency and measurements. The book is 80 pages, with a tan front cover has a black and white illustration of a girl reading and a boy playing with numbered cards, while their mother watches over them. The back cover lists other textbooks in the American Educational Series for "schools and colleges" by the same publisher. This book is inscribed presubably by the student in script inside front cover and title page "Luella May Weirick." in graphite and ink. Additional marks throughout text such as the name Carrie Jane Hoffman on the top of page 44. There is also a partial legible inscription inside back cover about Kissing Mr...
The creator of this series is Horatio Nelson Robinson (1806-1867), mathematician. He attended common school as a child; at 16 he developed astronomical calculations for an almanac. He attended the College of New Jersey at Princeton at age 19, and then became a professor of mathematics at the Naval Academy. Robinson wrote his first math textbook in 1847 and followed it up with numerous other textbooks. He received an honorary A.M. degree from the College of New Jersey at Princeton in 1836.
Daniel W. Fish (1820-1899) was the prolific editor of this text, and numerous others on arithmetic for primary school students and teachers alike.
This volume was published by Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. in 1873. Founder Henry Ivison (1808-1884) was one of the pioneers of the schoolbook industry in America. The business he established in New York City grew and prospered under several partnerships, with the name of Ivison always at the head of the firm. Intense competition in the American textbook industry caused several of the leading publishing houses to join forces. In 1890, the consolidation of Ivison, Blakeman and Co., Van Antwerp, Bragg and Co., A.S. Barnes & Co., and D. Appleton and Co. resulted in the creation of a new corporation known as the American Book Company.
This tan paper cut and folded model consists of twelve equilateral triangles. The pieces can be folded to form a regular octahedron. Circular arcs are indicated in pencil next to many edges
An inscription in pencil on one side reads: Agda Carlson (/) Jan-26-1915. An inscription on the inside (as folded) reads: Original Model.
Agda Carlson (1896-1980) was the Massachusetts-born daughter of Swedish immigrants to the United States. Yearbook records from the Old English High School and New High School of Commerce in Worcester, Massachsetts, for 1915 indicate that she planned to work in a hospital after graduating that year. However, subsequent Census records indicate that she continued to live with her parents and worked in Worcester as a dressmaker (1920) and a lace maker in a factory (1930). She is listed in later Worcester city directories as a “designer.”
References:
Aftermath [Yearbook of Old English High School and New High School of Commerce], 1915 gives a picture of Carlson as a high school senior. This, as well as Census, city directory, and burial records have been consulted on ancestry.com.
In the early twentieth century, a growing proportion of American children attended public schools. However, some continued to prefer private academies. For example, the Thurston Prep School, founded in Shadyside, Pennsylvania, in 1887, was devoted to teacher training for young women. A similar school in Shadyside – which also had young boys as students – was established in 1902 and soon named the Winchester School. Financial difficulties at the time of the Depression led to a merger of the two schools in 1935 – male students were then limited to kindergarten and first grade, and the curriculum resembled public elementary schools and high schools. Winchester Thurston moved to new premises in 1967, and at about that time purchased this teaching slide rule. The instrument was donated to the Smithsonian by the school through the good offices of Frances Glockler Hein (1923-2012). Mrs. Hein, as she was known to students, was born in California, raised in Minneapolis, and attended the University of Iowa. In late 1943 she graduated from iowa with a B.A. in mathematics. The next year she married a slightly older University of Iowa student, Richard E. Hein, who then was studying chemistry at Iowa State University and working on the Manhattan Project. They soon had four sons. By 1964, the boys were sufficiently grown for her to take a position at Winchester Thurston, where she taught mathematics for over twenty years.
In 1967, Winchester Thurston moved to a new campus. At about that time, the school acquired this 79-inch demonstration slide rule. It is made of painted wood, with a plastic cursor that has a wooden frame. In the early seventeenth century, the Scottish mathematician John Napier had discovered functions known as logarithms which make it possible to reduce problems of multiplication, division, and taking the roots of numbers to additions and subtractions. On a slide rule, the logarithms of numbers are represented as lengths. To multiply, one length is set on the base, and another added to it using the slide. The sum of the logarithms, which gives the product, is read off using the cursor. This slide rule also has scales for finding the squares, cubes, square roots, and cube roots of numbers.
Slide rules had first became popular in the United States in the 1890s, especially among engineers and scientists. Use of the device was taught in high schools and universities using oversized instruments like this. During the 1960s, the United States placed new emphasis on teaching mathematics and science. By the late 1970s, slide rules would be almost entirely displaced by handheld electronic calculators.
References:
Yearbooks and student newspapers of the University of Iowa.
Registrar's Office, University of Iowa.
Online obituary of Frances G. Hein at tributes.com.
During the 1950s, the Belgian teacher Emile-Georges Cuisenaire designed a set of rods to teach about numbers and basic arithmetic. John V. Trivett, a mathematics educator trained in England, wrote two paperback books to introduce teachers to the use of Cuisenaire rods. This is the revised edition of the second of them, copyrighted in 1963 and published by the Cuisenaire Company of America, then in New York, New York. Trivett would go on to become a professor of education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
For a set of Cuisenaire rods, see 1987.0542.01. For related documentation see 1987.0542.02 through 1987.0542.07.
For further information about the donor of the materials, see 1987.0542.01.
By the 1920s, mathematics educators increasingly turned to standardized tests as a way to measure what students knew, to predict what they could learn, and to determine where they had difficulties. This test had sections on addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The final two sections were on fractions, decimals, and percentages; and on a combination of problems. The authors were Raleigh Schorling (1887–1950), John R. Clark (1887–1986), and Mary A. Potter (1889–1993?). World Book Company published the four page leaflet in 1928. Versions of the test would be published for decades. The Schorling-Clark-Potter Arithmetic Test (Form A-Revised) was intended for use in grades five through twelve. The test consists of 100 questions.
By 1926, when the test was first published, Schorling and Clark had obtained their PhDs from Teachers College of Columbia University. After earning his doctorate, Clark headed the mathematics department of the Chicago State Teacher’s College, and then in 1920 returned to teach in the Department of Mathematics Education at Teachers College. He remained there until his retirement in 1952.
Schorling taught at the Lincoln School of Teachers College. He left in 1923 to become the first principal of the University High School at the University of Michigan, and completed his Teachers College doctorate in 1924. He remained at Ann Arbor for the rest of his career, serving as well as a professor of education at the university. Mary Potter obtained her undergraduate degree from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1913. She taught in several Wisconsin school districts, settling in Racine by 1920 and living there the rest of her working life.
At the Lincoln School, Schorling and Clark worked to reform arithmetic education by emphasizing the affairs of daily life. Their efforts led them to author new textbooks as well as new tests. Schorling, Clark, and Potter were all active in the establishment of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 1920.
Born in upstate New York, the donor of this example of the test Ruth Estelle Myer (1915-2001) graduated from Hunter College and then moved to Washington, D.C., in 1940. She worked in the War Department, the Department of Commerce, and the Civil Service Commission (now the Office of Personnel Management) for about forty years. Her area of expertise was psychological testing.
Dt. Myer obtained her M.A. from George Washington University in 1946 and her PhD. in psychology from American University in 1963. This is her personal collection of paper-and-pencil psychological tests. Topics of the tests range from mental ability to scholarly achievement to personality to occupational ratings. Dates range from 1928 to 1952.
References:
Michael Ackerman, “Mental Testing and the Expansion of Educational Opportunity,” History of Education Quarterly 35, no. 5 (Fall 1995): 279-300.
“Ruth E. Myer, Government Worker,” Washington Post, May 8, 2001.
Careful study often indicated improved ways of using adding machines. For example, Comptometer operators were trained to use only the first five (lower) keys of a Comptometer. It was quicker to push a “4” key and a “5” key than to reach up and push a “9” key. This device assisted in training. It has a green plastic base with a 5x5 keyboard. The key stems and keyboard are metal, while the keys and base are plastic. The keys are alternately concave (odd digits) and flat (even digits). There is no mechanism. The device is marked: COMPTOMETER (/) EDUCATOR (/) A FELT AND TARRANT PRODUCT.
Aprivately owned undated brochure for the Comptometer Educator uses some of the same photographs as a 1954 training manual for Comptometer operators, hence the date assigned. For the 1954 training manual, see 1994.3060.008.
During the 1950s, the Belgian teacher Emile-Georges Cuisenaire designed a set of rods to teach about numbers and basic arithmetic. Caleb Gattegno popularized his methods in Great Britain and the United States. This small paperback, Book A of Gattegno’s explanation, was copyrighted in 1958 and 1961.
For a set of Cuisenaire rods, see 1987.0542.01. For related documentation see 1987.0542.02 through 1987.0542.07.
For further information about the donor of the materials, see 1987.0542.01.
During the 1950s, the Belgian teacher Emile-Georges Cuisenaire designed a set of rods to teach about numbers and basic arithmetic. Caleb Gattegno popularized his methods in Great Britain and the United States. This small paperback, Book D of Gattegno’s explanation, was copyrighted in 1958 and 1961.
For a set of Cuisenaire rods, see 1987.0542.01. For related documentation see 1987.0542.02 through 1987.0542.07.
For further information about the donor of the materials, see 1987.0542.01.
First published in 1827, by the time of this 1850 edition, this volume sold as Smith's Second Book of Arithmetic. Practical and Mental Arithmetic on a new plan, in which mental arithmetic is Combined With The Use of the Slate: containing Complete System for All Practical Purposes being in dollars and cents...A Practical System of Book-keeping. The book, by Roswell C. Smith, contains simple math exercises in plain language with questions and answers that were devised by Smith while teaching in Providence, R.I. with his brother Asher L Smith. The cover consists of paper covered boards and the remains of a brown leather spine. This copy was published in New York. It was used in Maryland and is inscribed "Sarah Lee Brandenburg, February 22, An 1855."
Roswell Chamberlain Smith (1797-1875) was brought up in Connecticut with his brother Asher L. Smith. While his first edition received praise, the second edition 15 months later resulted in controversy and an 1881 claim by Professor Daniel Adams of Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, that some of the changes “had been filched.” Smith also wrote grammar, geography, and other arithmetic textbooks and was a supporter of Prudence Crandall and her effort to educate African American students. He should not be confused with his namesake nephew who was a lawyer, publisher, and founder of Schribner’s Monthly Magazine and the Century Magazine.
Publisher Daniel Burgess and Company was founded in Hartford, Connecticut in 1830 by Daniel Burgess (1804-1856), who planned to provide textbooks and reference books for the common schools. The company worked independently but also partnered with John Paine, Spaulding and Storrs, Cady. In 1844 Burgess moved to New York, where he became a deacon in Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. He retained the operation in Hartford and opened a new headquarters in New York, which remained in business until 1883.
A Practical Arithmetic by George Albert Wentworth is a 372-page mathematics textbook has a brown cover and a reddish binding. This copy was published by Ginn & Company in 1899. The title was originally published by 1881. The book contains a vocabulary list; notation examples; word problems; and examples for short processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, money, measurements, and percentages. At the end of the book are forty-one pages of answers. Inside the front cover is a graphite signature by "Ella W. King." The front and back endpapers are inscribed with equations and fractions, and a folded piece of lined paper handwritten with 10 "Arithmetic" problems is inserted between pages 306 and 307. There is also an inscription which reads “Arithmetic Varian, Harold.”
George Albert Wentworth (1835-1906) was an author of numerous math textbooks. He was born in Wakefield, New Hampshire and received elementary training in the district school and the local academy in Wakefield. In 1852 he entered Phillips Exeter Academy and later attended Harvard, graduating in 1858.
Edwin Ginn founded the publishing company Ginn Brothers in the City of Boston in 1867. The firm was reorganized under the name Ginn & Company in 1885 and became particularly known for its school texts. In 1895, the company built a new publishing factory, the Athenaeum Press, in Cambridge. Ginn & Company continued to be a successful publisher of educational texts for 70 years.
Warren Colburn (1792-1833) first published a version of this path breaking arithmetic textbook in 1821, the year after he graduated from Harvard College. The text bore the title An Arithmetic on the Plan of Pestalozzi, with Some Improvements. A revision and an extension appeared the following year, and by 1826 the volume had proved sufficiently popular to be known by the name of its author, the title being Colburn's First Lessons. Intellectual Arithmetic, Upon the Inductive Method of Instruction. This copy of the text, copyrighted in 1833 (the year Colburn died), was published in 1847 by William J. Reynolds Company of Boston. The volume has stiff paper covers held together by a like brown calfskin spine. The front has title and publication information and the back “RECOMMENDATIONS” from readers. Additional advertisements are included at the front on the book. Script on the front flyleaf gives the name of the student, "Julia Giddings / Mystic / Conn." and on the inside back cover "Julia Ann Giddings", both in ink.
Colburn, like the Swiss educator J.H. Pestalozzi, firmly believed that young girls and boys could and should learn do arithmetic in their heads (intellectually, as his title put it) even before they learned to write. Most previous formal arithmetic instruction in the U.S., including that Colburn had received at district schools in Massachusetts and from a private tutor, focused on working problems needed in trade. Those with the resources to attend these schools learned to write out problems by rote in handwritten cipher or cypher books.
Colburn did sufficiently well to obtain employment in factories in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and then entered Harvard College in 1816. Both as a student and after graduation, Colburn taught, particularly in mathematics. He was one of the founders of the American Institute of Instruction, which trained young teachers prior to the Civil War and the later development of normal school training of teachers. He also gave popular lectures and published other textbooks. in written arithmetic, in algebra, and in reading and grammar. None of these proved as popular as the First Lessons. In 1824, Colburn resumed his career in manufacturing, this time in the mills of Lowell, Massachusetts.
William J. Reynolds & Co. were Boston publishers in the 1840’s and 1850’s.
Around 1900 many American educators advocated the use of objects in teaching mathematics and the sciences. R. O. Evans Company of Chicago published this set of twenty chromolithographed charts. They were designed to apply the object method “to the entire subject of practical arithmetic.” The title chart shows a man in classical garb holding a diagram of the Pythagorean theorem and a pair of dividers, expounding to a child. Other instruments displayed include a pencil, a drawing pen, a magnetic compass, several geometric models, a globe, a telescope, two set squares, an hourglass, and one of Evans’s charts.
Charts include extensive commentary for teachers. There are sheets entitled Counting and Writing Numbers, Reviews and Colors, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division,. Other charts discuss Fractions, Weights and Measures, the Metric System, and Mensuration (one chart considers the measurement of flat surfaces, another one 3-dimensional solids). There also are charts on Business Methods (3 charts), Lumber and Timber Measure,Surveying, Percentage, Commercial and Legal Forms, and Book Keeping. A variety of objects are shown.
The paper, cloth-backed charts are held together at the top by a piece of fabric that is tacked to a wooden backing. This backing slides into an oak case decorated with machine-made molding and panels. A mark on the case reads: This is the (/) Property of (/) F. C. Adams (/) Hillsboro N. H. (/) May 28 - 1902 (/) Loaned to (/) Miss L. Hany (?) (/) Teacher School Dist. No. 17. F.C. Adams is probably Freeman C. Adams (1845-1913) of Hillsborough and Manchester, N.H. This suggests that this particular example of Evans’ Arithmetical Study was used by a woman who taught at a school in New Hampshire.
Kindergarten as a concept was developed in Germany by Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), a student of Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Froebel’s German kindergartens encouraged children to enjoy natural studies, music, stories, play with manipulative learning toys. He recommended teachers use geometric shapes and crafts for teaching and advocated the use of ‘gifts’ or playthings in the form of geometric shapes to promote learning and occupations or activities. Froebel also incorporated learning through expression, systematized play and social imitation. The first kindergarten opened in Germany in 1837; the first in the US was opened by Margarethe Schurz to a German speaking community in Wisconsin in 1856. In 1860, Elizabeth Peabody opened the first English speaking kindergarten in Boston. Over time, kindergarten was introduced into public schools with the changed purpose of providing an early academic foundation for 5 and 6-year old children preparing for 1st grade.
This set of blocks is the third “gift” in the series manufactured by the Milton Bradley Company. The blocks are in a small, square brown wooden box with a removable sliding top and a faded red label on one side. The box contains a full set of eight cube-shaped blocks.
Milton Bradley Company was established by Milton Bradley (1836-1911) in 1860. A mechanical draughtsman and patent agent interested in lithography, board games and puzzles, Milton Bradley became interested in the kindergarten movement after he attended a lecture by Elizabeth Peabody in 1869. Elizabeth and her sister Mary, who was by then the widow of educator Horace Mann, were devoted to promoting Froebel’s philosophy of creative play for pre-school children and helped spread of the Kindergarten Movement to America’s cities. These “gift boxes” are examples of school equipment made by Milton Bradley sometime between 1880 to 1900 for use in kindergartens. Milton Bradley produced educational materials free of charge for the kindergartens in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts and was committed to developing kindergarten educational materials such as these gifts, colored papers and paints.