Language exercises by students of Worcester, Massachusetts

This volume contains selected schoolwork in the subject of Language from students in grades one through nine has been copied by the students and bound together, likely for submission to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St. Louis, Missouri. The compilation represents the work of students at the Adams Square, Belmont Street, East Kendall Street, Elizabeth Street, Harlow Street, and Thomas Street schools in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Forms, likely printed by the exhibition, were filled out by the teachers and placed before each class’s work. They list the grade, school, and number of students in the classes. The teachers also described the assignments. The students wrote their names, grades, and ages at the top of each exercise.

The younger students most often copied words and sentences from a book or from the blackboard. Occasionally a class would work together to write a story or essay, and then the students would all copy a single version. In later grades, copying was replaced by dictation, retelling a story in one’s own words, and original composition. A common exercise was to write a story based on a picture assigned by the teacher. In later grades, the students studied punctuation, grammar, and wrote essays on the subjects of geography, history, literature, and science. The older children also practiced letter writing and French, German, and Latin.

Most of the exercises are illustrated either by a printed picture or a drawing by the children. The prints appear to be clipped from magazines or other publications and are reproductions of both photographs and illustrations.

Many of the students’ compositions tell stories including nursery rhymes, fairy tales, fables, and other anecdotes about animals or children. Other subjects include Henry W. Longfellow, J. G. Whittier, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Sir Edwin Landseer, Bach, Robert Bruce (King of Scotland), Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the Liberty Bell, Native Americans, the "Eskimo," the Incas, the conquest of Mexico, Japan, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Greek Art, and Saracen ornamentation. The compositions provide an example of teaching methods and the perception of these subjects at the beginning of the twentieth century.