179. Holographic Table with the Signatures of Teachers Ion Creangă, C. Grigorescu and V. Receanu (who together created the first modern Romanian primer), 1866

"The new method of writing and reading" for the use of the first primary class, also known as Creangă's Primer, was a didactic work compiled by Ion Creangă, in collaboration with his fellow teachers C. Grigorescu, Gh. Ienăchescu, N. Climescu, V. Răceanu and A. Simionescu. It was published in Iași, in 1868, and had 23 successive editions until 1893. At the time and later, until the interwar period, the system allowed the existence of parallel textbooks, as such the primer circulated concurrently with other textbooks of this type. After the Union in 1859, one of the difficult issues that the school authorities in the Principalities had to face was the standardization of textbooks, the modernization of their content and the generalization of the Latin alphabet in their drafting. To solve this problem, the law of education stipulated that the new unified ministry should organize competitions for the development of school books. Such a competition was organized in 1865, aiming also to create a "Primer", along with other textbooks for elementary education. The conditions that this should meet were also formulated: "being books intended for primary classes, they should be written in as popular a language as possible; to be worked according to the latest teaching methods [...]; not to be the reproduction or imitation with insignificant modifications of the existing and adopted books in schools, and in any way to be superior to the existing books". A year later, the permanent instruction Council found that the desired result could not be obtained and proposed to repeat the competition. In 1864, the young Ion Creangă, then deacon enrolled at the Preparatory School of the Three Hierarchs in Iași, where he was a student and director with Titu Maiorescu, was appointed by a princely decree as a provisional teacher of the first class of the primary school of the Three Hierarchs. Thus began a long career in which the writer served passionately in education (even during his temporary dismissal, between 1872 and 1874), until the aggravation of his illness, towards the end of his life. The document is entirely handwritten. Every teacher was obliged to complete his own register at the entrance and exit of the class. For each individual line, the name of the teacher, the entry and exit times, and the specific class are mentioned. The specimen is kept in very good condition.

Dimensions

custom 38.5 x 24.7 cm

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