Schoolmarm's Bookshelf

Educating Ideas From The Past

Welcome to a few select 'tidbits' from the field of education's past! As I have already stated on my homepage, I am an educator with a love of history. What better way is there to tie both of my scholarly passions together other than studying the history of education? Nothing else comes to my mind, perhaps, that is why I considered some old books I had discovered in an antique shop fascinating; they were so interesting and humorously old-fashioned, I bought them on the spot.

Now, I have decided to share a few excerpts from these treasures with you. I can only hope you find them as charming as I have. The first installment of what I hope will become a larger collection of works comes from a book, entitled Practical Home and School Methods, originally published in 1914 by the Bufton Book Co. This text was based on The New Teachers' and Pupils' Cyclopaedia, copyrighted in 1911. Without a doubt, the pedagogy discussed within both of these books predates their publication by at least 20 years; at a time when the field of education was still in its fundamental stages.

Please understand that the antiquated teaching methods and suggestions offered on these pages are approximately 100 years out-of-date and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or teaching practices of Schoolmarm. The pages contained within this bookshelf site are offered for entertainment/research purposes only. Nevertheless, you may just find that much of the advice here is presented in a down-to-earth and practical manner which is rather refreshing.

Notice about copyrights: Schoolmarm respects every author's right to be acknowledged for their work. All material displayed on these pages are over 75 years old and have been committed to the public domain. Nevertheless, I have included all appropriate source information. I have also made every effort to keep the original spelling, punctuation, and formatting intact in an effort to reproduce the material exactly as written. For those of you with a background in Language Arts, it is interesting to note how some things have changed over the years.

If anyone has similar works that they would like to contribute to this site, please contact me. I have a PC and can accept files in Word Perfect 6.1, MS Word 97, and Claris Works 5.0 formats besides plain text and HTML. Please make sure that all source information such as: title, author, editor, publisher, and publication date are included, if known. Naturally, all contributors will be properly credited.