I don't think this can provide any insight into our current education system, it wouldn't make much sense to compare them...
However it is a rather fascinating look at life in the late 1800's, and what the common concerns were.
The section on linguistics; back then there was no large (non-print) media and the US English dialects were more splintered. Additionally English hadn't become quite the lingua franca it is today; (educated) people generally knew several languages in order to communicate with people. If you read books written around that time, it's rather common for the author to quote French or Latin without translation, with the implicit understanding that the reader knows them.
The math questions also provide some really neat insight into what were considered "common practical tasks"...in my schooling most of the word problems were phrased in terms of buying things at the supermarket or for more advanced topics building skyscrapers and bridges etc... Here however it's all about bushels of wheat etc.
Comments
I don't think this can provide any insight into our current education system, it wouldn't make much sense to compare them...
However it is a rather fascinating look at life in the late 1800's, and what the common concerns were.
The section on linguistics; back then there was no large (non-print) media and the US English dialects were more splintered. Additionally English hadn't become quite the lingua franca it is today; (educated) people generally knew several languages in order to communicate with people. If you read books written around that time, it's rather common for the author to quote French or Latin without translation, with the implicit understanding that the reader knows them.
The math questions also provide some really neat insight into what were considered "common practical tasks"...in my schooling most of the word problems were phrased in terms of buying things at the supermarket or for more advanced topics building skyscrapers and bridges etc... Here however it's all about bushels of wheat etc.
Really neat.