Unpublished children's notebooks reveal poignant view of history

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/unpublished-childrens-notebooks/

by pepys • 6 years ago

122 16 6 years ago

djaque• 6 years ago

I can't believe that the design of composition notebooks is practically unchanged since the 1930's. Like I had that exact one just a few years ago. I guess "if it aint broke then don't fix it", but I thought somebody would have tried to change it at some point.

Spooky23• 6 years ago

They fixed them. Most have thin covers now, and fancy ones are plastic.

anateus• 6 years ago

Related: Onfim is a 13th century Novgorodian kid whose writing exercises and drawings survived: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfim

I love these windows into the past. Student exercises also help preserve a lot of cuneiform writings as semi-standardized exercise texts can then be found in fragments all over Mesopotamia. Here's an example of such a thing from Sumeria around 4000 years ago, involving a kid being made to go to school, being late, being punished, and admonished to study diligently: http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/408

codezero• 6 years ago

This is absolutely fascinating. It's right up my alley and I can't believe I haven't heard of Onfim before!

Birch bark is so darn useful, I didn't even realize it was also used as a writing surface, which makes all kinds of sense.

Thanks for sharing this.

benbreen• 6 years ago

Onfim is just wonderful, thank you for that! (I love the one of an adult horseman labelled "Onfim.")

At some point I should make a collection of all the kid's scribbles I've seen in archives. I remember one in the Huntington Library that was a contemporary copy of John Donne poems, written in beautiful script, but interspersed with a 4-year-olds scribbles of faces and animals via quill pen. It was hilarious.

I also love Darwin's kids drawings on the back of his "Origin of Species" manuscript: http://theappendix.net/posts/2014/02/darwins-children-drew-v...

qzw• 6 years ago

I know that good penmanship is no longer necessary, and my own handwriting is rather inelegant due to reluctance to practice when I was a child, but I can’t help but feel a little sad that beautiful handwriting is rarely seen anymore.

seph-reed• 6 years ago

A passage in this book by a second grader in Buenos Aires, Argentina, reads: “Mr. Brown, owner of the building, gave us a wonderful present. Eighty sprouts of trees. Our teachers explain to us how we must plant them. Let’s get to work! In a few years we will walk in the shadow of beautiful paradises. But—I say to my mother—when these trees are grown, I will not be in school anymore. That is indeed true—said my mother—but it is also nice to sow things so that others can enjoy them.”

I don't know if children still believe in creating paradises. Maybe things were just as bad then and all children imagine such things. Maybe this child is merely sheltered. But so confidently looking forward to the future like this; it breaks my heart a little bit.

saagarjha• 6 years ago

What paradise is really depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?

fit2rule• 6 years ago

It might be a Western thing - I know kids in Bali who still plant trees and dream of what the world will be like when they grow old in the shadows they will provide. Hope is a human constant - it seems there are conditions where it isn't necessarily foremost though. Perhaps, decadence.

dkmn• 6 years ago

Thank you! A very welcome thread. It's been very interesting to watch children during this current period of restriction... to see both their internal robustness (in some ways improved, I think, by the lack of constant ephemeral stimulation) and also how they respond to the cultural memes and currents.

E.g. as the author notes: "I think the most important thing that emerges is the influence that adults try to have on children. Even nowadays, in a subtler way, adults try to mold children and make them adapt to the society they live in."

troughway• 6 years ago

A passage in this book by a second grader in Buenos Aires, Argentina, reads: “Mr. Brown, owner of the building, gave us a wonderful present. Eighty sprouts of trees. Our teachers explain to us how we must plant them. Let’s get to work! In a few years we will walk in the shadow of beautiful paradises. But—I say to my mother—when these trees are grown, I will not be in school anymore. That is indeed true—said my mother—but it is also nice to sow things so that others can enjoy them.”

Such poetry makes me want to read the rest of this notebook.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 6 years ago

The notebook from Belarus has the inscription тетрадь which, the internet tells me, reads "tetrad'" and means, well, "notebook".

I find that funny. In greek, "ΤΕΤΡΑΔΙΟ", spelled almost identically and pronounced "tetradio" is, also, the notebook.

The root of the word seems to be the Greek word for a "quad" (four things) i.e. "tetrada". I had always wondered why we use this word for notebooks- what are the "four things" it's named after? I'm more curious now that I see Belarussians also use a similar word for their notebooks.

sergeykish• 6 years ago

Interesting, it was just a foreign word in my childhood. Now I see it is related to "тетраэдр" (τετρά-εδρον) and Tetra Pak. Possible origin:

* four-leaved pamphlet [1]

* four pages of a wax tablet [2]

* fourth of a standard paper size [3]

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%84%CE%B5%CF%84%CF%81%CE%A...

[2] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0...

[3] https://lexicography.online/etymology/%D1%82/%D1%82%D0%B5%D1...

YeGoblynQueenne2• 6 years ago