294 a treasure pulled from an ancient ruin

8/14/2019 294 a Treasure Pulled From an Ancient Ruin

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A TREASURE PULLED FROM AN ANC IENT RUINErnst F. Tonsing, Ph.D.Thousand Oaks, California14 May 2009

We w eren't supposed to be there. I knew it, although no o ne had specifically saidso . But, I was curious about the abandoned houses standing in the middle of a field inSaline County, Kansas, on the east-west, Falun Road jus t before it turned south tow ardsthe town of that name. I convinced my cou sin and brother to tromp over the recentlyplowed-under fields to go to see it. My g randmother, Alphild Peterson, had told me thathad been the home of her parents, the Andersons, and that the wood structure built on theeast side, and the solid, limestone block one adjoining it, was their dwelling before theybuilt the large, turn-of-the-century one closer to Falun .

After a hike from the "newer" house through the farm yard, we set out over firstone field and then another, approaching the goal from the south. They were in sadcondition, the wood building was so deteriorated that w e were afraid to go into it, and theblocks of stone and roof of the other one had collapsed leaving the w alls just three-quarters of the original height. We jus t stood there looking at it wh ile I lamented thatsuch a sturdy, old building could not be restored to its former glory. Even then I wassomewhat of a romantic when it comes to ancient ruins, whether from Italy, Greece, orcentral Kansas!While standing there, I noticed an opening on the right in the foundation of thestone building. Going over to it I saw that it led to a basement or "root cellar," and that

there were steps leading down. M y curiosity compelled me , again, to explore this hole. Icould not convince anyone else to follow m e, so I descended alon e. The steps weremuddy and so badly eroded that there hardly was any one level. I caught myself fromslipping on the last ones and stepped onto the floor. The recent rains had made it gooey,and as my eyes got accustomed to the dark, I could see that the walls enclosed a space ofabout twelve to fifteen feet. There was nothing in it except some weird mushroom s fiveor six inches high that looked like anemic asparagus growing in bunches here and thereand on the steps. (Later, a cousin informed me that this cellar had been the originaldugout built shortly after the An dersons had arrived from Sweden.)My curiosity satisfied, I scrambled up and out into the sunshine. But, the

adventure emboldened m e to try to get into the frame h ouse. How ever, I could not getvery far because of the debris of fallen roof timbers. But, I saw two g lass ointmentbottles and stuck them into my pock ets. Then, I spied a real treasure, a small, thin bookdropped between the jois ts of an interior wall. Com pletely covered in dirt, its oneremaining cover bent and obliterated, I carefully opened it up, and on the page facing thecover was written in ink in a youthful hand, "Albert Anderson," along with somescribbles that were undecipherable. Behind this page, "Ande rson" wa s written again, andbelow it, "Falun, Kan ." Then, on the page facing the title page were the almost


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unrecognizable words, "Adel An derson" and the date, 1882. His name appeared again onone of the last pages of the bo ok.Much to the scorn of the other two exp lorers, I carried the book back to the houseand wrapped it in newspap ers to keep the dirt from soiling any thing, and, I have kep t thatbook until today, now between the covers of archival plastic. I remembered it recentlywhen a discussion of present teaching methods came up in a conversation with someother teachers, and I was prompted to look at it again.The book, just six and three-quarters by four and three-quarters inches in size,was Ray's New P rimary Arithmetic for Young Learners, part of an "Eclectic EducationSeries," published in 1877.1 A paragraph facing the first lesson titled, "Suggestions toTeach ers," announced the aim to "teach one thing at a time, and teach it thoroug hly." Toenable students "to learn to count readily," the author suggests counting objects in theclassroom, such as "marb les, beans, kernels of corn, or pebbles." Then, the second"suggestion" is to combine numbers up to twenty by copying the tables in the book"either upon their slates or on the blackboard d uring the recitation." (Now , in the days ofPowerPoint and PC s, it seems strange that once, students wrote on sm all, black slate rocktablets with white chalk, or on large, slate panels on the walls.2) The purpose of copying,according to the author, was to enable the students to memorize the tables, to "preventcounting upon the fingers, a habit difficult to o vercom e when o nce ac quired."The eighty-nine lessons in the book cover addition, subtraction, and "as completein Multiplication and Division as possible in order to secure variety." The author alsosuggests that concrete examples be prepared to correspond with the abstract exercises inthe book: "An excellent practice is to require each pupil to bring two or more concreteexamples of his own to each recitation."Some lessons are preceded by a "No te" setting out the objectives of the followinglessons. Thus, Lesson VII states: "These exercises are intended for use with theNumeral Frame or with counters of some kind,--marbles, pebbles, kernels of corn, beans,or bits of pasteboard.3 The objects should be arranged in distinct groups, .. ." Thus, thecalculations are visualized by the students.The exercises are written so as to make the lessons relevant to students' lives.Questions in Lesson LXVII ask:Oliver had 17 ducks, and his mother gave him 4 more: how many had he then?Core spent 47 cents for boo ks, and 4 cents for pens: how m uch did he spend?

1 Ray's New Prim ary Arithmetic for Young Learners (Cincinnati, OH , and New York, NY: Van Antwerp,Bragg and Co., 1877).2 Slate is a metam orphosed sedimentary rock that cleaves easily. It mak es excellent long-lasting roof tilesas well as the best billiard tables.3 Pasteboard is what we call cardboard.


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Lesson LXX reveals the interest of small boys for tops and kites rather than iPods andcomputer games:Henry had 25 cen ts: he spent 4 cents for a top, and 6 cents for a kite: howmany cents has he have left?

Lesson LXXVI treats the gender-specific role of young girls and women in sewing andtending the fruit trees:Sarah bought 4 thimbles, at 5 cents each, and paid for them with cherries,at 10 cents a quart: how m any quarts did she give?

That men mowed fields with scythes4 is illustrated by a question from lesson LXXIX:If 4 men can mow a field of grass in 5 days, in how many days can 10menmow the same field?Perhaps less practical for these youngsters living in the prairie state of Kansas andfar from the British Isles was the lesson on English money . It explains that 4 farthingsequals 1 pence, and that 12 pence m ake 1 shilling, and 20 shillings 1 pound. Studentshad to work out the example: "Jane spent 8 pence for prunes, 16 pence for rice, and 5shillings for sugar, giving the clerk 1 pound in payment: how many shillings in changedid she receive? "Other lessons dealt with troy weight, avoirdupois weight (with examples frompounds of rice, brown sugar, hay, fish, figs and coffee), dry measure (for bushels of seedsand oats for horses), and liquid measure (for milk, molasses and kerosene for oil lamps).Long measures (for sidewalks, weather strips and bricks), square measures (for carpets,floors and plaster walls), apothecary weights, sizes of paper, and other calculations werecovered. The final lesson is a review of all of the previous ones.I am fascinated by the way the author of the book used examples recognizablefrom the daily activities of the students, and even from their prospective professions.Nearly every home, then, was lighted with kerosene lamps, and the usual mode oftransportation, besides walking, was by horse. The lessons give evidence of the econom yof a time wh ich relied as much upon bartering as exchanging cash. But, also, long beforecomputers, television and radio, the book engages children in learning about distantcurrencies, lands which most of them would never see except after a long voyage bysteamship.I was charmed, too, by the illustrations at the head of each major section. In away, these supplemented the lessons in that they contained objects that could be counted,and displayed model behavior for students. The first lesson of "Primary Arithm etic:

4 A scythe has a long shank with two grips, one half-way down, and a long, curved blade . It replaced thesickle as an implement to cut crops and grass in the sixteenth century. It, in turn, was replaced by horse-drawn mowers, and then the modern machine-driven mowers.


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Numbers and Figures," has a pyramid of button-like balls, one at top to ten in the bottomline. Lesson VII, "Oral Exercises," has a wom an w ith her hair up in a bun, her left handholding a book on her lap. With her right hand she points to the very attentive fourstudents, three girls seated behind a draped table and one boy standing in front. Anothergirl, who w ears a plaid dress and a ribbon in her hair, stands behind the teacher, carefullyobserving the lesson being taught. At the bottom of Lesson IX, a wild turkey sits on acraggy branch of a tree over a harvest moo n. To the left, almost behind the trunk, isanother turkey. The next page, "Ad dition," shows small flocks of sparrows flying aboutthe skies, and two others in the branches of a bush.The lesson on "Sub traction" show s three owls resting on pine branches as seven,jolly little bats turn summersaults overhead. A large moon rises in the background."Multiplication" has a man about to enter a barn, and a woman ho lding a baby, a youngboy in a hat standing alongside her, inside the building. Swa llows have constructed somenests high up on near the rafters and the little birds hang onto the nests or fly in out thedoor, watched in rapture by the three standing inside. The illustration for the chapter on"Division" has flocks of ducks and geese preparing for their annual migration south asone flock, playing "follow-the-leader" in a "V" formation, has already begun its journeyunder a crescent moon.5While these illustrations are appealing, I am sure that they were selected becausethey give a sense of the passing of the seasons during which the lessons were studied, andin one case, exemplify the composure and attentiveness necessary for the students to dotheir best in the classroom. I would suspect, how ever, that there were some unintendedconsequences of these images. I would think that for some of the pupils, they were anescape from the tedium of the lessons, tiny windows through which their imaginationscould join the freedom of the flight of birds or the twittering conversations of the littlebats during a recess period.The old stone house is now been reduced to a mere pile of rocks, and the cozyrooms that once saw the events in the life of a family of Sw edish pioneers are now gone.There are no pictures of the interior, no photographs of the family seated at their diningtable, sitting formally in the parlor, or fluffing up the pillows in the bedroom s. But, thereis one image that I can conjure through the little book retrieved from the ruins of thehouse m any years ago. I can imagine little Albert or Adel A nderson sitting at the table, akerosene lamp illuminating their faces, as they struggle over their math lessons for theirclass the next morning. I can see their intent features, their pencils tracing numbers onblank pieces of paper, and their erasers within grasp, ready to correct a miscalculation.And, I can see them, bundled against the cold, hand knitted scarves wrapped around theirnecks, grasping their books in hand, scrambling down the stone steps of their house andout to the road for their walk into town and the school house.The volume of Ray's New P rimary Arithmetic for Young Learners has an honoredplace in my library. It is still coated with dirt, misshap en, and missing its back cover.Yet, it is valued not only as an example of the pedagogy of more than a century ago, but


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of a age long gone, of slate tablets, bartering at the market, thim bles, kites, and kernels ofcorn. Life was not simpler and easier back then, but certainly it wa s different, and th islittle book is a treasured w indow into that time.There is one further illustration in the book that is notab le. In the middle of thetitle page is a tabula ensata ("tablet with ears"), with ribbons waving out of the holes ofthe handles. W ithin it is a Viking ship under full sail, with shields and oars extendingfrom the gunnels of the vessel that plows through the waves of the ocean. Wh ile theother illustrations in this little book certainly distracted students at times from theirlessons, it is this first picture which, perhap s, wa s the most evocative. It recalled theexperience of these stud ents' parents, or even themselves, immigrants wh o traveled fromdistant Scandinavia over the billowing sea to their new home on the Kansas prairies.They were new V ikings amid fields of waving w heat, about to embark successfully upontheir own adventuresso long as they studied their addition and multiplication first!

294 a treasure pulled from an ancient ruin

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