HOLBROOK'S SCHOOL APPARATUS
by Michael Day
In the early 19th century the idea began to spread that a decent common school education should
consist of more than just memorizing rules. A number of educators began promoting the idea that children should develop an understanding of the various topics; should have experiences beyond simply reading, and should be actively engaged in the learning process. This was quite a change from the 18th century approach of having children simply memorize - in silence - large selections of text. But teachers were conservative and change came slowly. An additional barrier to innovation was the lack of appropriate materials. In 1847, out of Connecticut's approximately 1600 schools, only 44 had a globe; only 32 had outline maps and only 19 had "other apparatus".
One of the people most actively involved in meeting the needs of innovative teachers was Joshua Holbrook. As early as 1826 he had an establishment in Boston for the sale of school equipment. Under his sons, Dwight and Alfred, the business grew and evolved into the Holbrook School Apparatus Manufacturing Company of Hartford, CT. By the 1850's the Holbrook Company had representatives in several parts of the country and was offering a collection of equipment called "Holbrook's Common School Apparatus".
State education leaders across the country praised it. "No school room in the land should be without it. The man who invented it is worthy of a place with the best of the world's benefactors", said a New Hampshire school official. Connecticut's legislature in 1856 offered a set to any school district that would put up $3.00 towards the cost; a good deal considering that the regular retail price was about $20.00. Connecticut's superintendent of schools, Henry Barnard, had arranged to have convicts in the state prison make many of the parts as a way of keeping down the cost. The annual state reports on conditions in the local schools identified which districts were using Holbrook, and by 1860 over 550 of Connecticut's 1600 district schools reported that they had purchased the Apparatus. At the same time over 700 schools invested in basic maps. A major change had occurred in the process called public education.
Holbrook was one of the first manufacturers to offer what today we call "manipulatives", equipment and supplies that students can handle as they learn basic concepts in math and science. Items in the Holbrook collection ranged from delicately geared contraptions designed to illustrate various aspects of the solar system to simple wooden cubes, spheres and other geometric forms. The materials Holbrook offered were accurate, well made and would be perfectly appropriate in any modern classroom. Few of the mechanical systems have survived and those that have are now quite valuable, but other items, such as the wooden geometric solids may still be in use somewhere.
Not every school could afford Holbrook's Apparatus, nor could every teacher appropriately use the materials, but a review of Holbrook's product line will give a good idea of what teaching equipment should be included in a modern recreation of a mid-19th century schoolhouse. While there were variations from time to time, the main items in Holbrook's Common School Apparatus were as follows:
Orrery or Planetarium: a model which demonstrates the proportionate size, relative positions and annual rotations of the planets and moons. Tellurian: a model the moving parts of which illustrate the movements of the earth and moon relative to the sun, as well as the succession of day and night, the change in seasons etc. Terrestrial Globe: the traditional model of planet earth with
continents, countries and oceans identified. This could be either mounted on a stand or hung from the ceiling. Hemisphere Globe: a globe that is cut in half and opens on a hinge to help in learning the relationship between globes and maps. Cube Root Block: a large wooden cube marked to illustrate the extraction of cube roots. Geometrical Solids: a set of hardwood models including cubes of various sizes (one unit, four units, nine units, etc); parallelograms, trapezoids, etc.; spheres, prisms, cylinders, pyramids and cones. Arithmeticon or Numeral frame: a wooden fame with a handle, very much like an abacus, with twelve horizontal wires each strung with twelve wooden balls, alternating black and white in groups of three. Gonigraph: A small instrument composed of a number of flat pieces of wood connected by pivots, which can be put into all possible geometrical figures that consist of straight lines and angles. Drawing Slate: on whose frame are letters and pictures for writing and drawing.
Period illustrations of the elements of Holbrook's Apparatus (along with other equipment for a mid-19th century classroom) can be found in Henry Barnard's 1854 book, School Architecture: or Contributions to the Improvement of School Houses in the United States. A digital reproduction of this classic volume is available at Google Books at the following link.
School Architecture by Henry Barnard The pictures of Holbrook's Apparatus can be found on pages 391 through 396.
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