In gathering artifacts in Clyde River for our museum, we have been given a good number of textbooks from the Beer family which were used to teach the children of Clyde River School from the late 1880s to the early 1900s. In reviewing these, I have discovered the delightful education they received despite their humble rural upbringing. It’s no wonder they acquired abilities to recite great poetry, calculate math easily in their heads, and name off the countries of the world and, as a result, were interested to know about the world. As I go through these texts, I would like to offer you a glimpse into a child’s education at that time. We will begin with a Geography book, Calkin’s Introductory Geography – The World: An Elementary Geography, from 1885 written by John Burgess Calkin.
John Burgess Calkin was born in 1829 in Nova Scotia and became a leading figure in Nova Scotia public education. Calkin was principal for many years of the Provincial Normal School that later became the Nova Scotia Teachers College. He authored several textbooks, best known for his geography and history texts. He passed in 1918.
The preface of this geography book sets the tone:
The school is merely an introduction to the child’s education. Its chief aims should be to strengthen the desire to know more of those objects which it brings into view, and to point out the paths that lead to the unknown. On parting company with his teacher, the pupil is prepared to become an independent worker, and to pursue his way with ever-increasing interest and power.
The textbook performs its proper function when it becomes an auxiliary of the school in working out these aims. While it conveys valuable truth respecting its subject, its higher purpose should be to awaken an interest in that subject, and to lead to systematic and persevering effort in searching it out more fully.
In studying geography, children need to realize that they are acquiring knowledge of things which have a real existence in the world around them, and that this knowledge has been gained by such observation as they are capable of exercising. The only sure way of securing this is, at the outset, to take them to something that is tangible. The first knowledge presented must be concrete, and should be given through oral lessons on their own neighborhood. In this way, beginners acquire clear and definite ideas as to the nature of the study upon which they are entering, and they are led upward from things to definitions and principles.
In following that approach, he begins the book with a chapter: “The School District or Section”, where he describes the school-house in a country community in a way that they will understand the underpinnings of grasping geography.
This is a picture of a school-house in the country. The boys and girls are assembling for school. Around their homes, scattered here and there through the neighborhood are hills, valleys, level fields, and woodlands. It is summer, and the country is very beautiful. The farmers are busy with their haymaking in the meadows. Near by are patches of grain and potatoes and on the sunny slopes are orchards which, in the autumn, will be laden with apples and pears. A way up on the hillsides are the pastures where the cows and sheep are quietly feeding. In the valleys, the brooks which have come down from the springs among the hills are winding their way, and hasting to the sea. Here, on holidays, the boys love to fish or sail their tiny boats, and girls love to stroll along the green banks and gather wildflowers.
He goes on to describe that other children may live on the seaside where the land is rocky and they have views of sailing ships. Yet others live in the city where there are no fields or brooks, but rather houses and shops with narrow streets between them where there are many kinds of things such as printers who print books and newspapers. Or others may live near coal mines and the men are miners or places where the men are lumbermen and when the spring comes, they float logs to the mills and saw them into lumber.
He suggests to the children that they should create a little geography of their own neighborhood to understand what kind of place they live in – observe all the features of their home and the places near it. They should make a little drawing of their school or at least a floor plan. From there, they can draw, the playground and any other objects around. Then, they can draw the neighborhood in which they live, marking the roads, the buildings, the brooks, the fields and any other things that they have observed. The result will be their own community map.
He continues by describing the province they live in, their country – Dominion of Canada, where if they travelled west, they would see lakes larger than their province and see mountains where at the peaks there is snow all year long, and, on the west coast, they would see another large ocean. The text then leads down through North America where the country is warmer and the waters of the east and west draw closer and then to South America.
In the next chapter, he takes students on a “Voyage Round the World” where they leave Halifax by steamship and sail east across the Atlantic Ocean.
In a few hours we lose sight of land, and there is nothing to be seen but the sea, with here and there a distant sail. We see no path, nor any sign to direct us; but the captain, with his compass and chart, can take us directly across the pathless ocean as if he followed a beaten track. He needs to know his duty well and to manage carefully, for sometimes we are surrounded by fog, so that we can scarcely see from one end of the ship to the other. In such a fog, we might run against another ship, or against rocks, and be dashed to pieces.
Who wouldn’t be captivated by this adventure? Throughout the book are detailed drawings of scenes from different cultures. It is easy to see how he was able to capture a child’s imagination and build a curiosity of the world which would remain with them throughout their lives.
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At the back of the book, he lists populations within the Dominion of Canada and other countries. Here are a few from within the Dominion:
- Prince Edward Island – 108,981 – Charlottetown – 11,485
- Nova Scotia – 440,572 – Halifax – 36,100
- New Brunswick – 321,233 – Fredericton – 6,218
- Quebec – 1,359,027 – Montreal – 140,747
- Ontario – 1,923,228 – Toronto – 86,415
- Manitoba – 123,200 – Winnipeg – 7,744
- British Columbia – 49,459 – Victoria – 5,925
- Districts & Territories 56,446 – Includes Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Athabasca, Keewatin, Northwest and Northeast Territories.
- Below, they list Newfoundland with a population of 181,753 – joined Canada in 1949.
Dominion of Canada 1880s (click to enlarge photo)
Central Europe – 1880s
Click here to view a digital version of the book updated and reprinted in 1898.
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