A FATHER’S OBSERVATIONS ON EDUCATION
ASH, John.
Sentiments on Education, collected from the best Writers; properly methodized, and interspersed with occasional Observations.
London, Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly, 1777.
Two vols, large 12mo, pp. I: vi, [2], 234, [22]; II: [4], 230, [14]; minor chips to edges and corners of a few leaves due to careless opening, front endpaper in vol. I partially torn, but a beautiful, clean set; bound in contemporary half polished mottled calf with marbled sides, spine gilt-ruled in compartments with gilt green morocco lettering-pieces, yellow edges.
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Sentiments on Education, collected from the best Writers; properly methodized, and interspersed with occasional Observations.
First edition of this collection of quotations from various writers on education, interspersed with the opinions of the author, the grammarian, lexicographer, and Baptist minister John Ash.
Ash worked as a blacksmith’s apprentice before becoming Baptist minister at Pershore, near Worcester, and in 1774 he received his LLD from Marischal College, Aberdeen. His views on education are likely drawn from his own experience teaching his young daughters reading and grammar, as was his popular children’s grammar Grammatical Institutes: or, an easy Introduction to Dr. Lowth’s English Grammar (1760). Ash advocates for teaching children about parts of speech as soon as they are ‘tolerably versed in the art of reading’, and gradually introducing more complex principles of grammar.
In his section on ‘Female Accomplishments’, Ash complains that young girls are forced to pay attention to posture and the ‘embellishments of dress’ rather than playing freely outdoors. ‘The fair pupil should not only be early taught to read, but, if possible, to love reading. Her mamma, or her governess, should never propose a lesson as a task, but rather as an entertainment’ (vol. II, p. 5); proper orthography should be taught as soon as possible, as well as parts of speech, and at later stages Ash also advocates for the study of astronomy, geography, chronology, music, arithmetic and accounting, and art. ‘However urgent the business of embroidering a ruffle, it is hoped the fair pupil will find sufficient leisure for books, and an inexhaustible fund of rational and refined pleasure in reading’ (p. 8).
Provenance:
From the library of Mary Hill (née Sandys, 1764–1836), Marchioness of Downshire and later Baroness Sandys (but without her usual gilt monogram to spine), a wealthy heiress, society hostess and literary patron, and widow of the politician Arthur Hill. Raised by her uncle, one of Samuel Johnson’s ‘Streatham Worthies’, she became a friend of both the Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert, and once entertained the Prince for four days at the family seat of Ombersley. She built up a fine collection of contemporary fiction, mostly by women, to add to the family library, and took great care over the education of her children following the premature death of her husband.
ESTC T84976 (another edition was printed in Dublin in the same year). See Navest, John Ash and the Rise of the Children’s Grammar (PhD thesis, 2011).
