Child Life in Colonial Days

by Alice Morse Earle

"The Little Reader's Assistant," by Noah Webster

The tables of measures were longer than ours to-day; in measuring liquids were used the terms anchors, tuns, butts, tierces, kilderkins, firkins, puncheons, etc. In dry measure were pottles, strikes, cooms, quarters, weys, lasts. Examples in currency were in pounds, shillings, and pence; and doubtless helped to retain the use of these terms in daily trade long after dollars had been coined in America. This labored book, aided by the flattering testimonials of Governor Bowdoin, of the Presidents of Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth Colleges, and of that idolized American, George Washington, gained wide acceptance.

I have examined with care a Wingate's Arithmetic printed in 1620, which was used for over a century in the Winslow family in Massachusetts. "Pythagoras his Table," is, of course, our multiplication table. Then comes, the "Rule of Three," the "double Golden Rule," the "Rule of Fellowship," the "Rule of False," etc., etc., ending with "Pastimes, a collection of pleasant and polite Questions to exercise all the parts of Vulgar Arithmetick." Here is one:—

"This Problem is usually propounded in this manner, viz. fifteen Christians and fifteen Turks being at Sea in one and the same Ship in a terrible Storm, & the Pilot declaring a necessity of casting the one half of those Persons into the Sea, that the rest might be saved; they all agreed that the persons to be cast away should be set out by lot after this manner, viz. the thirty persons should be placed in a round form like a Ring, and then beginning to count at one of the Passengers, and proceeding circularly, every ninth person should be cast into the Sea, until of the thirty persons there remained only fifteen. The question is, how those thirty persons ought to be placed, that the lot might infallibly fall upon the fifteen Turks & not upon any of the fifteen Christians? For the more easie remembering of the rule to resolve this question shall presuppose the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, to signifie five numbers to wit, (a) one, (e) two, (i) three, (o) four, and (u) five; then will the rule it self be briefly comprehended in these two following verses:—

From numbers, aid and art
Never will fame depart.

In which verses you are principally to observe the vowels, with their correspondent numbers before assigned, and then beginning with the Christians the vowel o (in from) signifieth that four Christians are to be placed together; next unto them, the vowel u (in num) signifieth that five Turks are to be placed. In like manner e (in bers) denoteth 2 Christians, a (in aid) 1 Turk, i (in aid) 3 Christians, a (in and) 1 Turk, a (in art) 1 Christian, e (in ne) 2 Turks, e (in ver) 2 Christians, i (in will) 3 Turks, a (in fame) 1 Christian, e (in fame) 2 Turks, e (in de) 2 Christians, a (in part) 1 Turk.

"The invention of the said Rule and such like, dependeth upon the subsequent demonstration, viz. if the number of persons be thirty, let thirty figures or cyphers be placed circularly or else in a right line as you see:—

ooooooooooooooo."

I trust the little Winslows and their neighbors understood this sum, and its explanation, and that the Christians were all saved, and the Turks were all drowned.

Geography was an accomplishment rather than a necessary study, and was spoken of as a diversion for a winter's evening. Many objections were made that it took the scholar's attention away from "cyphering." It was not taught in the elementary schools till this century. Morse's Geography was not written till after the Revolution. It had a mean little map of the United States, only a few inches square. On it all the land west of the Mississippi River was called Louisiana, and nearly all north of the Ohio River, the Northwestern Territory. Small as the book was, and meagre as was its information, many of its pages were devoted to short, stilted dialogues between a teacher and pupil, in which the scholar was made to say such priggish sentences:—

"I am very thankful, sir, for your entertaining instruction, and I shall never forget what you have been telling me.

"I long, sir, for to-morrow to come that I may hear more of your information.

"I am truly delighted, sir, with the account you have given me of my country. I wish, sir, it may be agreeable to you to give me a more particular description of the United States.

"I hope, sir, I have a due sense of your goodness to me. I have, sir, very cheerfully, and I trust very profitably, attended your instructions."

A rather amusing Geographical Catechism was published in 1796, by Rev. Henry Pattillo, a Presbyterian minister of North Carolina, for the use of the university students. It is properly and Presbyterianly religious. It gives this explanation of comets:—