This page from Stella Pymble's exercise book was marked by the teacher on 28 July 1898. Stella attended Pyrmont Public School in Sydney. She was probably in 3rd Class when she completed the book and would have been 9 or 10 years old.
The page is the second page of an arithmetic lesson of division and multiplication problems. The working at the top is for the problem, 'There are 1760 yards in a mile. How many yards in 261 miles?'
Stella used this book for all her lessons from 13 June 1898 to 31 October 1898.
The subjects in the book are arithmetic, poetry, tables, spelling, words and meanings, grammar, parsing, analysis, etymology, object lessons, geography, history and scripture.
Stella's teacher, S Taylor, has marked her work in red ink. He or she has used 'R' for 'right' and gives a mark out of 100 for 'N' and 'S':
N - neatness - overall neatness and presentation
S - subject - accuracy in the work and answers.
The exercise book shows:
the scope of subjects taught in 3rd Class in 1898
the subject content learnt by 3rd Class students in 1898
what high standard late 1890s 3rd Class student work looked like
the method of marking and style of teacher comments.
Date –13 June 1898 to 31 October 1898
Creator – Stella Pymble, 3rd Class student
Place – Pyrmont, New South Wales, Australia
Materials – black and red ink on lined paper. Cardboard covers.
Dimensions – 20.1cm x 16.3cm, 88 pages
What is your favourite page? Why?
What comments does the teacher write?
How would you describe Stella's bookwork and handwriting?
Do you think Stella liked doing her school work? Why do you think that?
Why do you think there was just the one book used for work in several subjects?
Students often completed their work on a slate board before copying it into their book. Is there any evidence in Stella's book to support that?
What does Stella's book work make you wonder about?
What questions do you have about school lessons of the past?
Finish Stella's words page:
Save, or download and print, Stella's unfinished Spelling Words page – button below.
Exactly copy each word into the blank column, copying Stella's handwriting.
View the YouTube video to learn more about student's exercise books of the late 1890s and early 1900s.
What is similar about each book?
What evidence-based inferences can you make about student exercise books of this period?
This is part of a page from Harold Henderson's exercise book was completed in 1890. He was in 2nd Class and was 8 years old. Harold attended Annandale Public School in Sydney.
The page is a list of words similar to Stella's words pages.
How is Harold's work similar and different to Stella's?
Can you spot the spelling errors in Harold's work? Check them against this list - purposes, curious, wounded, fastened, breathes, enemies, entirely, strength, struggled, reflection, admission, culprit, blossoms, acquainted, ignorant.
If Stella was sitting next to Harold in the schoolroom, what advice could she give him on his book work?
From 2nd Class, students sat at desks and wrote with pen and ink.
Students worked at wooden desks such as the long toms in the photograph.
Each desk had one or more inkwells and a groove at the top for pens and pencils.
Writing equipment included pens, blotting paper, a fabric pen wiper and ink wells. Students also wrote on slate boards with slate pencils.
Imagine sitting and working at a long tom. What would you like and dislike?
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