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Happy families; growing up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
8vo. Name to top of ffep. Dw has wear to extremities. Npc.
175 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1974
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February 1, 2019
I guess I decided to get this book from Interlibrary Loan because I saw it in a list of books by Latham, and I was already getting another book by her. This book reads nothing like Mr. Bowditch and Captain Cook. And it's a dumb title...and it's most definitely not for kids...so anyway, I don't suppose she meant it to be for children so much, and I'm sure she knew she was writing all over the map, with no one good subject; but why on earth did she write it? And why did I sort of think it would be a kid book?
It's a lot like other books of...some sort...that I've read, but I can't think which books now. And not a whole lot of useful stuff in this book. I mean, it's about 2/3 useful, really, but only in a sort of "give us the picture of the period" way, which if you already have, then great, but this isn't the book to really get it from. So the useful things are the tidbits to add to your picture, which you wouldn't happen to have heard from any other place, but they're not really necessary to know for your own future reference (I like to gather up bits of history to use as a teacher, but this book doesn't have a lot of that). And "Happy Families?" That is soooo generic a title for what this book ranges over, and yet there's no incident in the book you can pin as being why the title fits. So the title doesn't fit.
One thing I did gain from reading about the first four chapters--that as much as anyone in my circle/era/culture complains either about how my own homeschool education was surely the biggest foolish error ever made by my parents, or that public or otherwise private education these days is the foolishness, and everyone ought to be having the education I had, this is not a new argument that people have to figure out now, and people don't have to worry about "what education is coming to" in this time and place, when people didn't use to have to. No, this same argument has gone on in every country in Western civilization, in every era, in every circle; and no matter whether or how or where anyone has been educated, the summation is the same that you would end up having to make about me or anyone else like me or utterly unlike me: everyone has holes in their education, and every method of education leaves multiple things to be sadly lamented, and every method of education is better than no education as long as you might end up able to be a better person and know any more good than you otherwise would. And yet the world goes on, and in some method, individuals who care and work become educated, and improve the world's lot every generation. And how you got educated enough to help do that is pretty much irrelevant far enough down the road.
It's a lot like other books of...some sort...that I've read, but I can't think which books now. And not a whole lot of useful stuff in this book. I mean, it's about 2/3 useful, really, but only in a sort of "give us the picture of the period" way, which if you already have, then great, but this isn't the book to really get it from. So the useful things are the tidbits to add to your picture, which you wouldn't happen to have heard from any other place, but they're not really necessary to know for your own future reference (I like to gather up bits of history to use as a teacher, but this book doesn't have a lot of that). And "Happy Families?" That is soooo generic a title for what this book ranges over, and yet there's no incident in the book you can pin as being why the title fits. So the title doesn't fit.
One thing I did gain from reading about the first four chapters--that as much as anyone in my circle/era/culture complains either about how my own homeschool education was surely the biggest foolish error ever made by my parents, or that public or otherwise private education these days is the foolishness, and everyone ought to be having the education I had, this is not a new argument that people have to figure out now, and people don't have to worry about "what education is coming to" in this time and place, when people didn't use to have to. No, this same argument has gone on in every country in Western civilization, in every era, in every circle; and no matter whether or how or where anyone has been educated, the summation is the same that you would end up having to make about me or anyone else like me or utterly unlike me: everyone has holes in their education, and every method of education leaves multiple things to be sadly lamented, and every method of education is better than no education as long as you might end up able to be a better person and know any more good than you otherwise would. And yet the world goes on, and in some method, individuals who care and work become educated, and improve the world's lot every generation. And how you got educated enough to help do that is pretty much irrelevant far enough down the road.
Displaying 1 of 1 review