“Smith’s Geography on the Productive System; for Schools, Academies, and Families”

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From the collections of PVMA • Digital image © Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Assoc. • Image use information


About this item

Although Massachusetts towns provided free public education from the 17th century onward, students and their families bought their own schoolbooks. Teachers taught the subjects from the books each child brought. Spellers, readers, and arithmetic books were most common, followed by geography books like this one by Roswell Smith. The question and answer format, or catechism, Smith used was common to schoolbooks of the period. Scholars learned by rote, memorizing the answer to each question exactly as it appeared in the book. When Jedediah Morse wrote the first American geography in 1784, he included only two maps. In contrast, Smith’s geography had maps and illustrations. It also provided information on and stereotypic images of countries and cultures around the world. Particularly interesting are the criteria Smith used to rank various cultures on a scale of “civilization” that began with “barbarous” and ended with “enlightened.”

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Details

Item typeTextbook/Schoolbook
AuthorSmith, Roswell Chamberlain
PublisherW. Marshall and Company
Date1835
PlacePennsylvania
TopicEducation, Literacy
EraNational Expansion and Reform, 1816–1860
MaterialPaper
Process/FormatPrinting
Dimension detailsProcess Material: printed paper, ink Height: 8.25 in Width: 4.00 in
Catalog #L99.114
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Smith, Roswell Chamberlain. Smith’s Geography on the Productive System; for Schools, Academies, and Families. W. Marshall and Company, 1835. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l99-114/. Accessed on November 21, 2024.

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