Educational specimen box, mahogany, for the education of children, assembled in England, ca. 1850.

Unlined mahogany box for containing trays of educational specimens. The box has a lid with brass hinges, and a brass lock and lock plate. The inner surface of the base is painted green, possibly an arsenic green.

The first tray is fitted with a number of labelled white card compartments for the storage of the contents. It contains glass, unknown substance (probably loaf sugar), gum arabic, sponge, wax, camphor (in a bottle), antelope horn, whalebone (Minke whale), rice (in a bottle), ivory (African elephant), bark of the oak, a cube of wood, india rubber, mustard seed (in a bottle), brown sugar (in a bottle), a watch glass, acorns, a piece of honeycomb (in a glass fronted box), a key, a pen, a quill, a lead pencil, sealing wax, a thimble, a pair of scissors, a ladybird (sealed in a glass fronted box), rabbit fur, a fir cone, shellac, a piece of willow, a laurel leaf, two needles and a stone.

The second tray has a loop of dark green ribbon at each side to facilitate lifting it out, and is fitted with a number of labelled white card compartments for the storage of the contents. It contains ginger, mace and nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper (in a bottle), allspice (in a bottle), cloves (in a bottle), sago (in a bottle), tea (in a bottle), leather (ox, calf, horse, sheep), cork, glue, an oyster, wax candle, papers (rope paper, bark paper, rice paper, linen paper, cotton paper, silk paper), parchment, court plaster, saffron (in a bottle), oil (in a bottle), ink, felt, starch and porcelain.

The third tray also has a loop of dark green ribbon at each side to facilitate lifting it out, and is fitted with a number of labelled white card compartments for the storage of the contents. It contains hemp seed (in a bottle), flax seed (in a bottle), cotton, sheep's wool, a silkworm cocoon, hemp fibre, flax fibre, cotton thread, woollen thread, unwoven silk thread (sealed in a glass fronted box), pack thread, sack cloth, rope, thread, lace, linen, sailcloth, cotton velvet, cloth, flannel, satin silk and sarsnet silk.

The fourth tray also has a loop of dark green ribbon at each side to facilitate lifting it out, and is fitted with a number of labelled white card compartments for the storage of the contents. It contains pure gold, gold leaf, gold beater's skin, silver ore, silver plate, silver wire, quicksilver ore. quicksilver (mercury) (in a bottle), lead ore, pure lead, copper ore, pure copper, brass, iron ore, iron plate, steel plate, graphite, loadstone, tin ore, tin plate, pure tin, Bath stone, chalk, marble, gypsum, a rhomboid of calcspar, calcareous spar, fluor spar, quartz, pipe clay, fuller's earth, granite, coal, salt, slate, red coral and white coral.

With B.6-2009, part of Lot 584 in the Sale of the Roger Warner Collection at Christie's South Kensington, 20-21 January 2009. Roger Warner (1913-2008) was a respected antiques collector as well as a dealer.

The box of specimens for the education of children is based on a scheme originally devised by the Swiss educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) in his work with orphans. He began with observation, leading on to consciousness, and subsequently to speech. Only then, he argued, would the child progress satisfactorily to learning how to measure, draw, write, and use numbers. His concept was adapted in England by Charles and Elizabeth Mayo: Elizabeth, who was a teacher in a Pestalozzi school, set out the uses of such a box in her book 'Lessons on Objects' which was published in 1830 with a preface by Charles. The idea was for lessons with the objects to progress from the observation of simple natural objects through to increasingly more complex and scientific levels. Ironically, many UK teachers seem to have used Pestalozzi's equipment within the rigid structure they were used to, rather than the more individualistic approach he had intended.

According to Elizabeth Mayo's book 'Lessons on Objects', mahogany boxes with specimens of this type were apparently available for £1 15 shillings (£1.75) from a number of London suppliers:
W Edwards, 40 High Street, Camden Town
Seeleys, Fleet Street
Ridgway & Bilby, Gray's Inn Road
T Varty, Strand
Suter, Cheapside
Harvey and Darton, Grace Church Street
Hatchard and Son, Piccadilly
Darton and Clark, Holborn

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, on whose educational theories this specimen box is based, was advocating a holistic and child-centred approach to the education of the young as early as the 1790s. Pestalozzi advocated a radically different approach at a time when most teachers used methods which depended upon the written word and the 'correct' answer, and relied on punishment to make their pupils comply.

As well as suggesting that each child was an individual who should explore learning to find an answer, he insisted on the importance of the balance between head, hands and heart: the children should do practical things as well as study, and their education should be the route to social justice and freedom. He founded two experimetal schools which failed, but the crucial experience in developing his theories seems to have been his work with orphans whose parents had been killed during the Franco-Swiss wars of the 1790s. It was necessary to communicate with these traumatised children at a more personal level, and to base their education on their own knowledge and experience of life.

Although his work is now perhaps less well known than that of some later educational reformers such as Friedrich Froebel and Maria Montessori, his importance was recognised in using his name for the Pestalozzi children's villages which were set up after the Second World War of 1939-45, to care for refugee children. The Pestalozzi International Village Trust's work is currently offering educational opportunities to children from developing countries.

B.5:1 to 5-2009