Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 272, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1919 — SCHOOLBOOKS OF LONG AGO [ARTICLE]

SCHOOLBOOKS OF LONG AGO

Ancient Tablets Show That Children of Past Ages Studied Much as Do Those of Today. Professor Langdon of Oxford, Eng., has discovered that one group of the famous Nippur tablets stored at the University of Pennsylvania are In reality the oldest schoolbooks known to exist. They show, says the Christian Herald, that the children of the ancients learned much that the boys and girls of today have to study. According to these tablets the children of 4,200 years ago were taught arithmetic, geography, history and grammar just like the children of today. - < The. multiplication tables are remarkably distinct, and in plain numerals show the incontrovertible fact that three times one are three and five times one are five. On one tablet the school boy has been given a lesson in phonetic signs corresponding to the shorffiand of modern times. The Sumerians, the authors of these tablets, also invented the use of writing syllables and combining them into words. t?eing the first step toward the alphabet.