Paradigm, No. 9 (December, 1992)

 In October 1979, on my formal retirement from teaching in the University of Leeds, this Collection was to my great satisfaction received into the permanent care of the Brotherton Library of the University and has ever since been housed among the special collections of that Library. At that time it probably numbered some 6000 or more items: by now it must have nearer 8000. The then Brotherton Librarian, and in particular Peter Morrish, Keeper of Special Collections, deserve our gratitude for the foresight and vision they showed in welcoming such a considerable accession.

The Collection began, as must so often be the case, from what was felt to be a practical need. If students training to be teachers of the classical languages were properly to understand the necessarily changing nature of their craft, should they not be aware of past as well as of current teaching methods, so that they could themselves contribute the more usefully to those of the future?

From April 1956 there started to grow a small, very personal collection of text-books used in the teaching of Greek and of Latin. This embryo collection gradually accumulated in a tiny little attic in Beech Grove House, a building already over 150 years old and the oldest on the campus. For more than a decade this was the room where even some of my smaller tutorial groups somehow managed to squeeze in! But then came the day when a colleague, who occupied the room underneath, began to get worried at the threatening weight of books, daily increasing over his head and relying on beams never intended to carry such a load. With most welcome haste the Collection (and its creator) were moved into one of the finest rooms in the University.

By this time the Collection had its own considerable card index files. Letters in appropriate journals had announced its existence, asking that surplus or unwanted classical text-books be offered to the Collection. The aim had become to build up a collection as complete as possible for posterity. Moreover, because of the pioneering courses in Leeds for teachers of nonlinguistic classical studies, its scope widened to include text-books from this enormously increased field. Still more rapid growth ensued. Offers of books came in from far and wide, from world-famous scholars as well as from humble country schoolmasters and schoolmistresses.

In due course Institute of Education libraries became aware of their duty to preserve their old text-books, while continuing to acquire new ones. To avoid duplication each Institute undertook responsibility for preserving a specific subject area. Naturally Leeds was designated as the repository for out-dated classical text-books from the other Institutes, and the Leeds Institute proved entirely supportive of the already existing Collection. In no other University was there in any subject such a text-book collection.

Developments continued. Text-books were soon seen as but part of the larger field of teaching materials. Nor has the Collection ever felt itself limited to printed materials. Not only do maps, charts, and posters find a place, but also models and games, match-boxes and wine-bottles, not to mention slides and film strips, tapes and records, and a set of silent films made in a Yorkshire school where I taught in the nineteen-thirties.

Such a Collection is never finished, never complete. It is ongoing. It serves as an archive of exercise books, of examination papers, of teachers' own lesson notes, as well as of correspondence about classics teaching. There are books on classics methodology, sets of periodicals and bulletins (many of which would never have reached a copyright library), and a small number of classical items from countries outside the English-speaking world.

The Collection's Catalogue (of which two volumes have so far been published) includes the titles not only of all the books already held, but also of as many as possible other text-books known to have been published, but not yet held in the Collection.

For all those researching in the history or methodology of classical teaching after 1800 the Collection is an essential tool, but it is also important for researchers in the historical sociology of education and in what we may call applied educational psychology and philosophy, especially for the nineteenth century, since no other subject so fully reflects the changing values and attitudes.

The Collection is unique and specialist, and includes items not held even in the major libraries, but above all its importance lies in that it is of real, practical use to scholars from many parts of the world. It is a great pleasure to know that the Collection was a major element in the Colloquium's decision to meet at Leeds this summer.

[Based on a paper given at the Leeds Colloquium. Ed.]

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Paradigm Catalogue Textbook Colloquium

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