As many readers will know, W.B. Thompson, an old friend of ARLT, has devoted a remarkable amount of his time and energy to forming this considerable and important collection of Classical Texts and allied materials, and has now been prevailed upon to provide an introduction to the purpose and extent of his collection.

The National Collection of Classical Text-Books and Teaching Materials

Some notes on the Collection, its history and purpose

The Collection began in a small way almost twenty-five years ago as a personal collection for use by students in the then Department of Education of the University of Leeds who were reading for the Graduate Certificate. During the 960s it came to form part of the Leeds contribution to the national scheme whereby the various Institute of Education Libraries undertook the preservation of School Text-Books in particular subject areas. On the amalgamation of the Institute and Department to form a School of Education in 1976 the Collection retained its link with the Library of the Institute which then became known as the Education Library. In October 1979 on my formal retirement from the University the Collection moved to the Special Collections section of the Brotherton Library of the University. From the time of its inception the Collection had been kept in Beech Grove House, the oldest building on the campus. Until 1970 it was housed in a very small attic room (where the sheer weight of the Collection became a hazard to those living on the floor below) and subsequently in the very fine room on the ground floor, which I was privileged to occupy for the last ten years or so of my career in Leeds.

The Collection is not endowed and has no regular source of funds for purchase of items, for their housing, or for their care and repair. Nor has it had any secretarial, technical, or other professional service save of a voluntary kind. It has however been greatly helped by the good-will and encouragement of successive Librarians of the Institute. Its future has been secured by the willingness of the University Librarian and of the Librarian in charge of Special Collections to receive this very considerable accession of some 6000 or more items.

Initially the Collection was concerned solely with school text-books for the learning of the Greek and Latin languages. Very soon it became apparent that texts of Greek and Latin authors were equally a part of its concern, though in both these fields but more especially the latter it was not easy to draw any hard and fast line distinguishing School and University books. In this discrimination and in all others the Collection has consistently tended to take the less exclusive view. The next extension was made inevitable by the development of Classical Studies. (The first in-service course for teachers in this field took place in the University of Leeds from January to June 1965). Text-books concerning Greek and Roman Art, History, Geography, Literature, Mythology, Social Life, and such like had clearly to be included: no longer was the Collection merely 'Greek and Latin' - it was 'Classical'.

Developments in education generally have in recent years brought more and more into everyday class-room use for teaching and learning materials of many kinds besides books. A Collection which neglected to include posters, transparencies, slides, tapes, discs, cassettes, and such things as work cards, models, or kits would not be properly representative of the materials used in the ordinary teaching of the Classics. This area of the Collection is comparatively in its infancy. It does however have some interesting items such as a series of films made in a Yorkshire school as part of its Latin teaching before the Second World War. The present Curator's collection of wine bottles relating to the Classics will constitute the first accession of such materials to the University Library, designated under the generic title of 'non-book materials'!

Two important criteria of acceptance remain to be considered. Firstly, was the Collection to be English or British - or European or indeed world-wide? The criterion the Collection operated at first was that books should have been written in English and published within the Commonwealth. But Oxford Classical Texts are not written in English and yet clearly they must be included. Increasingly it was found that books were published in the U.S.A. and used in this country, and anyway they were written in English. So these are now included. It still leaves fascinating books such as a Latin course book written in Welsh and Bradley's Arnold in Irish. What should we do with these interesting examples of text-books?

At the present time there is a kind of appendix to the Collection which includes such items - and indeed a sample collection of European text-books past and present. The Collection has concentrated on acquiring material published from 1800 onwards, and very appropriately the house in which it has been built up dates from that very year. Earlier material is of course gladly accepted. A guiding principle has been that older books have acquired by virtue of their age a financial value which serves to protect them from destruction. The Collection has initially therefore been concerned to preserve this later material which is in grave danger of being pulped or otherwise destroyed. This applies not merely to the multitude of nineteenth century books, but also to the important group of text-books published in the late 1930s the stocks of which were largely destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War.

Perhaps the most important decision concerning the Collection was to publish a Catalogue. This is one of the most effective ways of helping to guarantee preservation. This Catalogue however was to be more than a mere list of volumes actually

held: it was to include (and at the same time distinguish) volumes of whose existence we knew but which we did not yet hold. Reviewers of the first volumes have indicated how much more valuable this extension has made the Catalogue. It has also been effective in encouraging further donations to fill the gaps remaining.

The Catalogue, originally envisaged as being encompassed in two or three volumes, now demands four, of which the first two have already been published. Each volume includes an index.

Part One lists Greek and Latin Dictionaries, Grammars, Vocabularies, Notes and Miscellanea, Courses, Composition Manuals (Prose and Verse), Readers (these include books of Unseens), and Selections from individual authors (pp. viij + 119, 1970);

Part Two lists Greek Texts of particular authors, Notes, Vocabularies, and Translations (pp. xij + 100, 1974);

Part Three lists Latin Texts similarly (shortly to be published);

Part Four will list books and materials about the Classical World as well as in an appendix books, articles and periodicals about the history and methodology of Classical Teaching (in preparation).

A further developing area of interest and activity for the Collection is as an Archive for material which is not easily classified under any of the foregoing headings, but which includes Classical teachers' personal note-books, school examination papers, collections of postage-stamps, match-boxes, etc. of Classical interest, and all those items nowadays collectively designated as ephemeralia. Correspondence of relevance to Classical education (with, for example, teachers of Classics, or heads, or examination boards) may one day be not only of interest but even of importance. Readers of 'Latin Teaching' may like to know that the Collection holds a few items concerning W.H.D. Rouse, including an autograph letter and a copy of his 'Latin Struwwelpeter' with his personal presentation inscription to one of his Perse boys. Increasingly materials are being produced up and down the country which are not 'published' in any technical sense (and therefore most unlikely ever to reach the various copyright libraries) but which are important as reflecting developments in the teaching of Classics. If any prospective donor of personal material of this sort is in any doubt, let him or her please consult the Curator of the Collection before consigning such material to the waste-paper basket. The apparently trivial of one generation so often proves to be important to a later generation.

These last remarks lead to a consideration of the purpose of the Collection. Briefly it is to provide an essential tool for those researching either in the History and Methodology of Classical Teaching (especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) or in certain historical aspects of the Sociology of Education and indeed of the application of Educational Psychology and philosophy. Because of the position of the Classics in the curriculum of the nineteenth century the text-books of no other subject can reflect so fully the values and attitudes of teachers, of educators, and indeed of society at large.

In this respect the prefaces and dedications are often of considerable importance and value. So too are the topics, and even the sentences, set for translation in the composition manuals and course-books. The varying emphases shown in the changing pattern of the chosen authors for reading in schools are also of subtle but important significance. These may be seen to be even more apparent in the text-book treatment of history, mythology, and social life.

The Curator is always willing to give any help he can to all mastership, doctoral, or other research students who can benefit from this Collection, a Collection which (so far as is known) is unique in the world.

William B Thompson

Curator