The New Brunswick School Book Collection

Brief History of Text-Book Use in New Brunswick

In the early 19th century, the choice of text-books for Canadian schools was left to the locality, nominally to the trustees, although in practice more often it was what a teacher preferred or what parents had already purchased.  Educators and legislators soon recognized the need for both uniformity and authorization of textbooks. In 1846,  Egerton Ryerson in Ontario obtained authorization of the Irish National Series of school books. He succeeded in having the same books used by all pupils in all publicly supported schools throughout that province.

In 1844, province wide school inspections instigated by the New Brunswick House of Assembly revealed that school books in use ranged over the whole spectrum of texts published in the last seventy years. Even more disturbing than the variety was the dearth of texts in many cases. The Inspectors found that in some schools the only reading books were the Spelling Book and the New Testament. In an attempt to address this situation, the Parish School Act of 1847 authorized the newly created Board of Education to spend £1000 for the purchase of books and apparatus for the parish schools. The result was a major purchase of books, maps and tablets from the Education Office in Dublin. From that point the Irish National Series of books came into common use, although their adoption remained optional. As late as the 1860s, a variety of school books were still in use in the rural schools of New Brunswick.

The Common Schools Act of 1871 was the turning point in text-book use in New Brunswick. Under this legislation, it was “the duty of the Board of Education to prescribe all text-books, and no other than the books prescribed can be used in any of the public schools”.

History of the UNB Archives Collection of School Texts

The UNB Archives Collection of School Texts consists of 2,176 volumes with publication dates ranging from the early 1800s to the 1990s. The collection was acquired piecemeal from a variety of sources. The New Brunswick Department of Education made one of the initial donations. A large number of texts were donated by individuals. Some items were transferred by the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick as part of larger donations. The Teachers’ College contributed some of the texts. Finally, as textbooks became outdated, older editions were removed from the main library or the Education Resource Centre stacks and transferred to the UNB Archives.

By the mid-1990s, the collection contained over 3,000 volumes and was continuing to grow. Organization, duplication and cataloguing became major problems. Patron interest was ongoing but accessibility was becoming increasingly difficult. With assistance from the JET program, a student was hired for two summers to review holdings, remove duplicates, create cataloguing records that could be customized for our purposes and enter the information into a searchable database.

Contents of the UNB Archives Collection of School Texts

The initial focus of the school book collection was on English language texts used in the New Brunswick public school system. Review of the holdings revealed a number of other closely related items, some of which were included because they enhanced the collection overall. There are a few texts that were obviously used in post-secondary education, in particular teacher training. A sizable number of French language texts for use by francophone or French immersion students are also found within the collection. Some of the books may be more appropriately characterized as supplementary materials, obviously designed for classroom use, but probably at the discretion of individual teachers. There were also a few items that may have been part of the school reference library, rather than a text-book, but this type of item was kept to a minimum. It should be noted that curriculum guides and requisition lists were included, largely because they help to document the usage of particular texts. Effort was made in the format portion of the cataloguing record to recognize the variations from a standard public school text- book.

The Database

Detailed cataloguing records have been prepared for each volume and entered into a searchable database. Standard cataloguing elements: Author, Title, Publication Information, Edition and Physical Description were compiled for each volume. In view of the nature of the material, it was decided that additional information would be of significant benefit to the researcher. Both copyright date and current date were recorded, often giving insight into the longevity of certain texts. Format was noted as the collection includes a variety of textbooks, teachers’ manuals and workbooks, as well as curriculum guides and requisition lists.

No comprehensive reference tool exists detailing the use of textbooks in New Brunswick schools so any evidence of a particular text being used was carefully noted in the Jurisdiction field. The obvious sources were authorization by the Department of Education for New Brunswick on the title page or official property stamps. The common practice among students to inscribe their names and sometimes the name of their school, grade or year was also noted as evidence of usage.

The Note field was used to record the physical condition of the book including damage to the text, spine or cover. In some instances references were added to guide researchers to other volumes in a ‘set’.

It is common practice for researchers to approach us with an interest in the texts used to teach a particular curriculum subject. Assignment of a curriculum subject heading was critical, but very challenging. Terminology and content change over time, with specialization or integration of related subject areas, or when a subject is taught at different levels of the school system. Decisions on subject areas were necessarily arbitrary, but every effort was made to define the subject area and to ensure consistency.

Researchers should carefully check the definitions of curriculum subjects. It is important that researchers also check related subjects where there is overlap between a very specific subject such as algebra and more comprehensive programs such as mathematics. The areas of language arts and literature were especially problematic and researchers working in these areas are strongly advised to read the definition of English and its component parts such as grammar and drama. The distinction between language and literature is at times so blurred that researchers would be well advised to search both areas if one fails to reveal a particular text. A miscellaneous section was created to accommodate texts which did not fit into existing categories. In particular this was true of early 19th century texts which encompassed several subject areas that later were approached as separate subjects.

French language texts posed their own challenges. In instances where the text was obviously designed to teach the French language to English speaking students, the text was put into the category of French in the English language texts. Similarly, the texts that were designed for teaching literacy through the medium of the French language, went into langue française in the French language texts on the assumption they were used with francophone students or, if of recent origin, possibly immersion students. Far more difficult were the advanced French texts, particularly in the area of French literature. These might have been used with francophone students, or very advanced English speaking students.