Böcker i Cambridge Library Collection - Education-serien

The scientist Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817), educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford, was known for his significant mechanical inventions. He was a Member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, where he exchanged ideas with other scientists, including James Watt. However, Edgeworth was also greatly interested in education: drawing on his own experiences of raising twenty children (by his four wives), in 1788 he published, with his daughter, the poet Maria Edgeworth, his famous two-volume Practical Education (also reissued in this series). The work was very influential, and led to this book, published in 1809, a series of essays on professional education (again written in co-operation with Maria), dealing with the nature of different occupations in a state. He discusses education for the professions, including the Church, the Army and the Law, but also refers to the education of statesmen, gentlemen and even princes.

The author of handbooks that reflected the Victorian emphasis on bettering one's prospects, Charles Eyre Pascoe (1842-1912) addressed the topic of female education in this work of 1879, at a time when the Cambridge colleges of Girton and Newnham were in their infancy. 'Chiefly designed for the use of persons of the upper middle class', the guide aims to assist parents in making informed choices about their daughters' education. The coverage extends from kindergarten through to university, before focusing on career options for women in the late nineteenth century, in fields such as teaching, the arts and medicine. Throughout, Pascoe's recommendations are based on consideration of the breadth of the curriculum, the qualifications of the teaching staff and the results achieved in examinations. For higher education, details of entrance examinations are provided, together with information on the subjects and lectures that were open to women at that time.

The son of a shopkeeper, Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838) received little formal education himself. In 1798 he set up a school in Southwark, waiving fees for poor children. Originally published in 1803, this work sets out in detail the philosophy and practice of Lancaster's system of education, which relied on peer tutoring. He was always concerned with the education of the underprivileged in industrial cities, lamenting that 'poor children be deprived of even an initiatory share of education, and of almost any attention to their morals'. The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the peak of the popularity of Lancaster's system as his ideas spread and inspired the establishment of schools around the world. His book is still significant in the history of educational methods. This reissue of the revised third edition of 1805 incorporates a brief 1840 biography of Lancaster.

Paving the way for modern feminist thinking, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) dared to challenge traditional eighteenth-century attitudes towards women. First published in 1787, this book discusses how girls can best be educated to become valuable wives and mothers. It argues that women can offer the most effective contribution to society if they are brought up to display sound morals, character and intellect, rather than superficial social graces. Wollstonecraft later developed her ideas in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (also reissued in this series), in which she attacked the educational restrictions imposed upon women. Her writings formed a cornerstone of the battle for women's rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Prompting deeper reflection upon the role and status of women in modern society, the present work remains an instructive and provocative read for those seeking to learn about the roots of feminism in its social and historical context.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many scientists, naturalists, engineers and inventors from humble backgrounds, largely self-taught, made significant contributions to British science. This 1873 book by James Cash (1839-1909) celebrates their achievements in natural history, while promoting a 'self-help' ideology, stressing how disadvantages could be overcome by those with ability and determination. Many of his subjects corresponded with great names such as William Jackson Hooker, and sent specimens or local information which helped build up the larger picture. Cash gives particular attention to men from the north of England, where many men engaged in the cloth trade were also notable plant collectors. His subjects include George Caley, a weaver self-taught in Latin and French, and whom Sir Joseph Banks employed to go to New South Wales as a collector; Edward Hobson, a factory worker; and John Horsefield, a self-taught weaver who memorised the Linnaean orders at his loom.

The novelist and essayist Elizabeth Hamilton (1756?-1816) received her education at a day school from the age of eight, and later recalled her childhood and schooldays fondly. However, intellectual girls in the period were regarded with some suspicion, and she remembered hiding from visitors those books that might be deemed inappropriate for a young woman. Later embarking on a literary career, she published in 1801 her Letters on Education, republished in this second edition of 1801-2. Owing much to the theories of John Locke as well as the period's standard conduct-book advice on the education of girls, Hamilton's work offers detailed theoretical explorations of how children learn. 'Be not afraid my good friend,' she writes, 'that I intend making speculative philosophers of your daughters.' Volume 2 begins with a comment on the necessity of obtaining knowledge of our intellectual faculties, and how this knowledge is to be acquired.

The novelist and essayist Elizabeth Hamilton (1756?-1816) received her education at a day school from the age of eight, and later recalled her childhood and schooldays fondly. However, intellectual girls in the period were regarded with some suspicion, and she remembered hiding from visitors those books that might be deemed inappropriate for a young woman. Later embarking on a literary career, she published in 1801 her Letters on Education, republished in this second edition of 1801-2. Owing much to the theories of John Locke as well as the period's standard conduct-book advice on the education of girls, Hamilton's work offers detailed theoretical explorations of how children learn. 'Be not afraid my good friend,' she writes, 'that I intend making speculative philosophers of your daughters.' Volume 1 includes comments on the 'pernicious effects of parental partiality', considering also 'contempt for the female character' and 'pride of station'.

The English polymath Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) wrote on a wide range of scientific, theological and pedagogical subjects. After the appearance of his influential Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) and A Course of Lectures on the Theory of Language and Universal Grammar (1762), both of which are reissued in this series, Priestley produced in 1765 his Essay on a Course of Liberal Education, which is included and expanded on in this 1778 publication. Here he explains the reasons behind his decision to guide the curriculum at Warrington Academy towards a greater focus on subjects with a more direct application to 'civil and active life'. He offers more general instruction on the cultivation of young men in various spheres, notably through foreign travel and developing 'knowledge of the world'. Priestley ends by outlining a suggested course of lectures on the history and laws of England.

Celebrated for her pioneering work to improve the education, health and welfare of slum children, Margaret McMillan (1860-1931) was an active socialist campaigner and member of the Independent Labour Party. Her involvement with Bradford school boards drew her attention to the poor state of health of the pupils - rickets, scurvy, anaemia and malnutrition were commonplace. Working with her sister Rachel (1859-1917), as well as lobbying for improved standards, Margaret opened the country's first school clinic in Bow in 1908. The sisters' most famous enterprise, the Deptford Camp School, soon followed, and the Rachel McMillan College for training nurses and teachers was founded in 1930. One of her many influential books on pre-school and primary education, this work of 1907 considers the vital role of the school doctor and argues that the practice of poor schoolchildren engaging in part-time labour is detrimental to their well-being.

First published in 1790, this collection of letters presents the mature views of Catharine Macaulay (1731-91) on education and related topics. Famed as an impassioned writer on history and politics, she defied eighteenth-century preconceptions of what it was possible and appropriate for women to achieve. Ranging across a broad spectrum of subjects, from diet and reading to pastimes, religion and discipline, this work reflects her enlightened thinking. She compares the educational situation in England to the contemporary French and American systems, and even those of ancient Rome and Sparta. Championing equality in education regardless of gender, Macaulay argues for the instruction of girls within a co-educational system, seeing this as the only way to improve female standing in society. Also reissued in this series is her eight-volume History of England (1763-83), which traces the upheavals of the seventeenth century.

This children's history of England by Maria Callcott (1785-1842) was written as though she were telling a series of stories to a young boy known as 'Little Arthur'. Having travelled widely during her first marriage, publishing accounts under the name Maria Graham, she had become an invalid by 1831 owing to a burst blood vessel. Nevertheless, she continued her literary activity and became best known for this highly popular work. The first edition, published by John Murray in two volumes in 1835, is reissued here in a single volume. In the course of the century after its appearance, the book went through seventy editions and sold some 80,000 copies. Its success stemmed partly from its romantic and patriotic depiction of the protagonists of English history. Also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection are Callcott's travel journals describing her time in India, Brazil and Chile.

This three-volume history of England from before the Roman conquest through to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was originally serialised in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words between 1851 and 1853. The text was published in book form in the same period, although each volume was post-dated to the following year. Dickens dedicated the work to his own children, intending it to be a stepping stone to more substantial histories. The volumes were popular with readers for decades, and were used in British schools well into the twentieth century. Dickens employs his signature style to bring events and personalities to life, making use of vivid similes, unabashedly partisan language and direct speech, as well as the occasional moral lesson. Volume 2 covers the period from the reign of Henry III through to the death in 1485 of the 'usurper and murderer' Richard III.

Displaying her intellectual and literary abilities from a young age, 'Mrs Taylor of Ongar' (1757-1830) enjoyed writing all her life. She had eleven children, of whom six (four of them writers) survived to adulthood. Her published works began with advice books for her own daughters, produced when increasing deafness made ordinary conversation difficult for her. This book, published in 1818, follows her earlier works for young women with a guide to conduct and 'reciprocal duties' within the family. Stern warnings and cautionary tales are given to show the importance of duty to and respect for parents by children, but the parental duties of care in rearing and especially in education are emphasised. Early discipline, lovingly applied, is seen as the key to successful parenting, and its absence is deemed disastrous. Like Ann Taylor's Practical Hints to Young Females (also reissued in this series), the book offers fascinating insights into the middle-class ideal of domestic happiness.

Displaying her intellectual and literary abilities from a young age, 'Mrs Taylor of Ongar' (1757-1830) enjoyed writing all her life. She had eleven children, of whom six (four of them writers) survived to adulthood. Her published works began with advice books for her own daughters, produced when increasing deafness made ordinary conversation difficult for her. Given the difficulty of providing advice equally appropriate to girls at all levels of society, this 1815 work is addressed to 'females in the middle ranks'. It is assumed that a girl's aspiration, as well as her destiny, is to be a wife and mother: conduct towards the husband, and the rearing of children, are of prime importance. But there is also a chapter for the husband, pointing out his reciprocal duties to his wife as an equal partner in their relationship. The book offers fascinating insights into the middle-class ideal of domestic happiness.

This work on the theory of education was first published in 1839. The five writers had been chosen as the winners in a competition for an essay on the 'Expediency and Means of Elevating the Profession of the Educator in Society', organised by the Central Society of Education, founded in 1837 to promote state funding of education, at a time when the 'monitor' system, whereby older children taught younger ones, was seen as an effective (and money-saving) method. The journalist John Lalor (1814-56) won first prize with a wide-ranging consideration of all the aspects of education, comparing the status of teachers through history and across several countries, and championing their 'sacred mission'. The runners-up were the writer John A. Heraud, the Unitarian minister Edward Higginson, the lawyer and author James Simpson, and Mrs Sarah Porter, prolific writer on education and sister of the political economist David Ricardo.

In this 1835 work, Sarah Porter, nee Ricardo (1790-1862) shows her enthusiasm for arithmetic, and her concern for teaching it in a way that will develop the pupil's mind: 'There is no branch of early education so admirably adapted to call forth and strengthen the reasoning powers.' She uses the device of a conversation between pupil and teacher, popularised by Jane Marcet (several of whose works are reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection), to guide young Edmund from the written symbols for numbers through addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, fractions and decimals, proportion, and square and cube roots. Answers to the questions are provided at the end of the book. A member of the Central Society of Education, which promoted imaginative theories of education instead of rote learning, Mrs Porter reworked her book in 1852 as Rational Arithmetic, a more conventional and less entertaining textbook for use in schools.

This innovative aid to the study of Italian was published in 1867 by Maria Francesca Rossetti (1827-76), the older sister of Dante Gabriel, William Michael and Christina. A scholar and teacher of Italian, she was later to publish A Shadow of Dante, a guide to the Divine Comedy, also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. Her purpose here, as she explains in her preface, is to demonstrate idiomatic Italian usage by providing short passages translated very literally into English, so that the 'unnatural' English phraseology demonstrates the correct Italian construction. The passages are to be translated back into Italian, with the help of some supplied vocabulary and an opening chapter which elucidates some of the more difficult aspects of Italian grammar, often by comparing Italian with French usage. The technique had long been used for Latin and Greek prose composition, but was innovatory for modern languages.

Originally published in 1773 in two volumes, and now reissued here together in one, this work by the writer Hester Chapone (1727-1801), a renowned proponent of female education, contains advice delivered in the form of letters to her niece. The first volume deals primarily with matters of religion and morality, while the second volume addresses questions of behaviour and schooling. Unusually for self-improvement books of this era, Chapone recommends that a young woman should have a rigorous education in a wide variety of subjects, including ancient history and geography, as well as instruction in ladylike deportment and mastery of household matters. She exhorts young ladies to avoid vanity and other vices through devoted study of scripture, and writes of the importance of choosing worthy and sensible friends who can be trusted to offer good advice. Chapone's posthumously published works, in two volumes, are also reissued in this series.

One of the foremost authors of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) made the project of women's education the pillar of her career. Letters for Literary Ladies (1795), her first published work, takes up this question in earnest, offering a staunch defence of women's intellectual training and an impassioned warning against its neglect. The first two letters likely draw from an exchange between Richard Edgeworth, Maria's father, and his friend Thomas Day, presenting arguments for and against educating young women in the sciences and philosophy. The 'Letters of Julia and Caroline' illustrate this debate in epistolary form, dramatising both sides of the argument. The final 'Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification' serves as a wry critique of women's own self-deceptions. Complex and provocative, Letters for Literary Ladies demonstrates Edgeworth's early exploration of the subject that would define her career.

Sarah Trimmer was an experienced Sunday and charity school educator, remembered for her popularization of images and fables in children's textbooks. Trimmer's ideas were already well respected during her lifetime and many of her books saw multiple editions, eliciting the interest of such figures as Queen Charlotte and the Dowager Countess Spencer. Her Reflections upon the Education of Children in Charity Schools, first published in 1792, was one of several books she wrote to advise her readers on how to approach the Christian education of the poor. In it, Trimmer passionately advocated for the utility of charity schools, provided that they followed a more age-appropriate and critical curriculum, which she conveniently published as separate editions. Those interested in the history of education, social history, the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, or the changing voice of female authorship will benefit from this book.

The Tudor writer Roger Ascham (c.1514-1568) was royal tutor to Princess Elizabeth. Ascham is best known for his works Toxophilus (1545) and The Scholemaster (1570) which were edited, together with his Report of the Affairs and State of Germany (1570), by the renowned literary scholar William Aldis Wright (1831-1914) and published in 1904 as part of the Cambridge English Classics series. Toxophilus, a Ciceronian dialogue between Philologus (the lover of study) and Toxophilus (the lover of the bow), articulates the importance of physical training to a gentleman's education. The Scholemaster, which was published posthumously, consists of two books. The first describes the character and teaching methods of the ideal tutor and the second advocates teaching languages by double translation. Ascham's English prose came to be seen as a model for how classical principles of form and organisation could be applied to the vernacular.

Throughout his career as a theologian, deacon, priest and cardinal, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) remained a committed believer in the value of education. A graduate of Trinity College, Oxford, his own academic experiences shaped his friendships, politics and faith. His Discourses (1852), delivered initially as a series of lectures when he was rector of the newly-established Catholic University of Ireland, inspired a generation of young and talented Catholic scholars. Providing an intelligent but accessible analysis of the relationship between theology and other academic disciplines, the lectures were celebrated in the popular press for dispensing instruction to those who 'had no traditions to guide them in forming a correct estimate of what a university ought to be'. Newman argued that a university should foster the 'diffusion and extension of knowledge' rather than religious or moral training, and that it should prepare students for life in the world.

John Ayrton Paris (1785-1856), writer and physician, served as president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1844 until his death. Originally published in 1827, this three-volume work is a book of science for children, intended, in the author's words, 'to blend amusement with instruction'.

Published for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society in 1899, this first volume of a two-volume survey by the historian Arthur Francis Leach (1851-1915) documents the early history of York, Beverley and Ripon schools, with a wealth of primary sources (many in Latin), accompanied by an introductory narrative account.

First published in 1844, these two volumes present a collection of letters by Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), Head of Rugby School and Professor of History at Oxford. The letters in Volume 1 reveal Arnold's early life, his career at Rugby up to 1835, and his ideas for educational reform.

Richard Lovell Edgeworth's influential two-volume work of 1788, written with his daughter Maria, derives its authority and innovative features from Edgeworth's own experiences of raising twenty children. Arguing for the formative character of early childhood experiences in general, Volume 1 deals with areas including play, obedience and learning.

Hannah More (1745-1833) was highly influential in her lifetime, publishing a wide variety of successful works, including social and moral tracts and religious fiction. This two-volume work (1799) is her definitive study on women's education, outlining her belief that women's conduct determined the moral state of a nation.

This short book of improving tales by the physician and medical reformer Thomas Percival, originally written for his own children, first published in 1777 and revised and enlarged in 1779, contains lessons on obedience to parents, family affection, and kindness to animals, among many other examples of moral instruction.

This 1796 book on botany, a science which 'contributes to health of body and cheerfulness of disposition' but is difficult to study because of its Latin nomenclature, offers a simple introduction for children through the medium of letters, as 'Felicia' shares with 'Constance' her growing understanding of plant science.

A clergyman and prolific author, William Fordyce Mavor (1758-1837) first published this hugely popular work in 1801. Reissued here is the corrected and improved 1843 edition. Intended to 'sow the seeds of useful learning', it is both a reading primer and a compendium of general knowledge.