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 1960s 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 'reek 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 materiel 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 (in preparation).
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 I personal note-books, school examination papers,
collections of postage-stamps, match.-boxes, etc. of Classical interest, and
all those items nowadays collectively designated as ephemera. 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 Struwelpeter 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 too 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 patters of the
chosen authors for reading in schools are also of subtle but important
significance. These may often prove 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.
Curator