The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-07-16
A RIP VAN WINKLE SERIES.
So-Called Indiana Readers Relate Only to
Events and Literature of the Long Ago.

LII mas Deen 1acetlOuSly proposed TO cali
the series of readers. the sample copies of
which bear the imprint Indiana School
book Company the Rip Van Wrinkle
series, for the reason hat the books are so
far behind the times. The designation
would not be sufficiently exact, for the
lazy, g~ood-natured Dutchman of the vii
lsge of Falling Waters slept only twenty
years, while this series of readers appear to
have drowsed nearly thirty. The complai-
SAINT gentlemen of the board that adopted
these readers lave made no claim that the
first, second and third were up to the re-
CURED standard; but they have given a
hesitatlng Endorsement to the fourth and
fifth readersin saying thatthese highertext-
books were acceptable. They made the du-
bious merit of these two books an excuse
for taking the entire series. Neither the
fourth nor the fifth readers of the Indiana
luding to any of the battles for the Union
OF to any officer engaged on either side of
that conflict. There is not a word of
biography of any general, not a line about
the abolition of slavery, not a reference OF
any kind to Abraham Lincoln. The years
1861 to 1865, In which more history was
made than in all others in the life of this
Nation, are ignored in these books. They
come from Missouri" said an educator
yesterday, and were made for that State,
and the prejudices of the survivors of the
Jesse James and Quantrell bands have
been respected. for the books have nothing
to recall unpleasant memories of the lost
cause"
None of the great inventions and dis
c~overies of the past twenty-five years are
noted in either the fourth or fifth reader.
The telephone, the monograph, the great
discoveries in electricity, marvellous featS
of engineering. railroads that span great
continents-none of these have any place
young. There is in the fourth reader one
chapter with the title Three Great Inven-
tons" 1t tells briefly of the mariners
compass, gunpowder, and the art of print
ing with movable types and shows that
This would suggest that the
reader itself. the matter in it having
so little contemporaneous interest, might as
well nave been compiled and printed in
China. The same reader contains short 6l-
Webster, Adams, Jefferson, Washington.
Horace Greeley and Andrew Jackson. The
last President mentioned in this book Is
Andrew Jackson. 1t has forty lines of BIZ
ography of Horace Greeley, but there is not
one word as to his opposition to slavery or
his services for the Union. 1t is a little re-
markable, however, that Horace Greeley
should be in this Missouri textbook at all
when it is recalled how the folks down that
way used to
Oh, for a shot at a Yankee schoolteacher,
And oh, for o crack at old Greeley and Beecher.
The engravings in the fourth eader are
ridiculOusly inartistic. On page 127 there
is a picture illustrating q title, walking
on a Fence" that would make any boy
laugh. The 'fence," as shown in the en-
craving. isabOut eighteen inches high, with
but one. rail, and that at the top. This
rail is plainly shown to be six inches wide,
and yet the boys. in the most awkward at
titudes. are represented as walking it III
great nervousness and in imminent danger OF
falling off. Boys all over this city walk
the agility of cats, and maintain their bal
ance no matter how narrow and precarious
the footing. Such youngsters would look
upon a baby picture like this with fine
ScOrn.
The fifth reader selections are nearly all
old. and were old thirty years ago. The
nearest approach to saying anything relat-
ing to the late u~npleasaDtness is in
twenty-four lines on Liberty of the
speech of Col. L. ID. Baker, United States
Senator from Oregon. The speech was
made but a short time before his death al
Balls Bluff, he being one of the first to fall
in the battles for the Union. There were
par pSspts Of few that Ii speech ss %asa stronger Dgs thar fse
| wonder is that any of the utter.
ances of that patriot should have
got into this "non-partisan" textbook
| The last reading lesson in the book. page
347, is entitled CRUSADER and Saracen." A
note introducing the lesson says: This
extract is taken from Walter ScOtt's novel
1.-The Talisman." Richard CGur de Leon
is the Christian knight and Saladin. the
Saracen warrior" This is a brilliant bit oil
misinformatiOn. Probably nine out of ten
ffth-reader school-boys could set the an
thor of the book right and tell him that the
Christian hero in this bout with the Sara
cen was not Richard the Lion-heaIted a
all, but the knight of the Leopard, Davio
a. = Sool nn;+e as had arr TS Ssn mem I,anu ef tb n
Indiana School-book Company are probably
successors in business TO that publishing
house frequently referred to by the late
George G.. Harding, 1.-The well-establisheG
firm of P~uterbaugh, Eliphalet & Co., Hard
scrabble. Ind"