Textbooks for primary school in the reception of Western Ukrainian teachers (the second half of the XIX – early XX centuries)

The process of creating school textbooks is continuous and is based on positive retrospective experience and modern demands of society to the content of education. Under such conditions, the study of the attitude of practising teachers and scholars towards textbooks for primary school in the second half of the nineteenth – early twentieth centuries is relevant for pedagogical science. The article analyses the ideas of Western Ukrainian teachers of the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries on the problem of compiling and using school textbooks, their role in education. The analysis of positive and negative characteristics of textbooks for primary school of the period under study is carried out. The main socio-economic and political factors influencing the state and functioning of textbooks for primary school are considered. The aim of the article is to analyse publications and ideas of Western Ukrainian teachers and scholars towards the structure of textbooks for primary school, scientific and accessible content, brevity, accuracy and quality of presentation, the language of textbooks, clarity of definitions, unambiguous use of terms. The research methodology involved: bibliographic search, comparative analysis, systematization and theoretical generalization, content analysis for analytical processing of literature. During the period under study, theoretical substantiation of textbooks for primary school structure, content, didactic principles of text construction began. The importance of visual instruction in primary school was emphasised. Numerous examples have shown the fact that teachers' dissatisfaction with school textbooks was due to excessive volume, numerous unsuccessful passages of texts with dry content, complex, unsuitable for the children’s style, terms and long sentences. Their main flaw was that the material was presented in a dry and tendentious way, thus creating obstacles to the development of interest in independent reading outside the school.


Introduction.
The issue of providing students with quality textbooks is relevant today, as it was relevant at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.The process of creating school textbooks is continuous and is based on positive retrospective experience and modern demands of society to the content of education.Under such conditions, the study of the attitude of practising teachers and scholars towards textbooks for primary school in the second half of the nineteenth -early twentieth century is relevant for pedagogical science.Retrospective analysis of the textbooks assists in deepening the comprehension of the ideas presented by Western Ukrainian practising teachers and scholars of the period under study on teaching and use of textbooks for primary school and avoiding mistakes as well as in developing modern textbooks for primary school.
The aim of the article is to analyse publications and ideas of Western Ukrainian teachers and scholars towards the structure of textbooks for primary school, scientific and accessible content, brevity, accuracy and quality of presentation, the language of textbooks, clarity of definitions; unambiguous use of terms.
The researchers V. Beilinson, V. Bezpalko, D. Zuev dealt with the structure of the textbook.J. Kodlyuk researched textbooks related to primary education.In the historical aspect, school textbooks were studied by B. Stuparyk, T. Zavhorodnia, I. Kurliak.
Methodology.To achieve the aim of the research, the following methods were used: bibliographic search, comparative analysis, systematization and theoretical generalization, content analysis for analytical processing of literature.
Results and Discussion.According to the Austro-Hungarian state school law of May 14, 1889, children needed to be educated morally and religiously, to develop their spiritual world, knowledge and abilities necessary for further life.The Law of 1889 provided for the revision of the curriculum for public schools and emphasised the need to separate school textbooks for rural and urban public schools, due to different mental levels of rural and urban children.In the 1st grade, one textbook was enough for urban and rural schools, as the learning process at this stage was the same.In the 2nd grade, the division was desirable: in the second part the primer for rural schools should have contained stories about school, house, garden, field, valley, forest, etc.; for city schools -stories about school, townhouse, street, market, etc.
The books for the second regional language contained excerpts from 'realities' and the natural sciences, and there were no stories that could be used to learn the language most easily.In elementary school, excerpts should have been short, interestingly written with words used daily, so that the teacher did not waste time explaining the words.In the first passages of such a book, you need to choose words that are most similar to the words of the language of instruction.
Teachers considered it appropriate in the first part of the textbook on teaching language to place stories of moral content, which would alternate with verse.In the second part -to provide the most detailed illustrations of natural history, to add maps of Austria, Europe and the hemispheres to the excerpts in Geography, to illustrate examples in the excerpts of Physics (Про шкільні підручники,1891: 119).
Analysing school textbooks for the 2nd and 3rd grades, Lovitsky (1891) noted that the language in the textbook for the 2nd grade was too difficult and when compiling this textbook little attention was paid to gradualness.To his mind, it would have been better to provide descriptions in the following sequence: domestic animals, wild animals, domestic birds, flying away birds and add descriptions of the swallow and the May beetle (Ловицький, 1891: 149).His main remarks were: complicated explanation, many unknown concepts, inconsistency of the child's level of development (material included in the textbook for the 2nd grade should have been presented in the textbook for the 3rd grade), dry presentation, excerpts needed relocation, both textbooks did not take into account requirements of curricula concerning Geography.
Starting with the 2nd grade textbook, children could learn a lot of 'wise' information, but did not have the opportunity to learn about the most important geographical concepts: their homeland, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the region's products and customs and traditions of its inhabitants.This textbook contained only 2 historical passages -about the life of the Austrian rulers (66 Funeral of a Beggar, 123 Joseph II) and did not have a single passage from the history of our people.The second part of passage 123 Joseph II was not perceived by children at their level, because this event was alien to them.Instead of focusing on the moral significance of the event, it was necessary to clarify in the learning process such concepts as post office, postmaster, portrait with which the event was associated, and situations that were incomprehensible to children.The main idea of this story was not clear to children.
Among the advantages of school textbooks for the 3rd grade, Lovitsky noted that they have better grouped passages.First, there were excerpts about Galicia, then excerpts about the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, then about Europe and other parts of the world, and later on concepts such as sea, lakes, river, land, celestial bodies.However, children in the 3rd grade could not find in their textbook physical and ethnographic information about Europe, the earth, celestial bodies.
The textbook for the 3rd grade contained 15 historical passages (8 -on the history of Austria and 7on the history of Rus).It seemed strange to Julian Lovitsky that the princely period was discussed in 5 passages from the history of Rus; and really at the time when Rus was under Polish rule, there was not a single Ruthenian whose life and deeds could be presented to children as an example of piety, courage, patriotism and other virtues (Ловицькій, 1891: 165).
One of the practising teachers noted that in the reader at 3 and 4 p.m.There was not the slightest hint of history and they considered it appropriate to place at the beginning a brief description of the life of the Ruthenians near Austria as an introduction to the general content in the textbook on the 5th and 6th AD. and finally submit a story about the most important inventions that would lead to changes in public life.In accordance with the curriculum, in the 3rd grade (5th and 6th grades), which obliged to study stories on regional, Austrian and world history, as well as the responsibilities and rights of citizens of the state, Ratal'skyy recommended expanding the content of historical passages, present vivid events of the epochs, a broader description of Rus under the princely rule, information about Rus under the rule of Lithuania and Poland, more information about Ukraine and its heroes (Ратальский, 1892: 387).
The change of the Ruthenian etymological spelling to the phonetic one prompted the High Council of the school district to change the books used in schools.The primer compiled by one teacher did not fully meet the pedagogical requirements, the regional school authorities commissioned a separate commission of 6 teachers under the leadership of the regional school inspector Dr. Severin Dnistryansky to compile a new more practical primer.The commission invited teachers to send their wishes and instructions.The new primer was published in 1893.Dombrovsky (1893) identified the advantages of the new primer over the previous one: • Drawings for exercises were systematically arranged, enlarged.
• In the graphic part, there was the only way of writing for all letters and it was the simplest.
• All letters written in the new letter were larger, more beautiful, clearer and written according to the rules of calligraphy.
• According to the corresponding illustration to each new letter, objects that could interest children and achieve practical science (sledges, fish, foxes, scissors, feathers, geese, goats, apples) were selected for illustrations.
• Sentences with 'detached' content, which sprayed the education of students, were replaced by integral excerpts.
• National anthem was added.
• The second part of the primer was reduced by almost half (from 25 to 13 cards) so that the teacher could finish the primer in one year (Домбровский, 1893: 309-311).
In 1893 -1894 a new stage in the development of our schooling began due to the change of school curricula and school textbooks in accordance with the new plans.The content of the new books was much better, because it corresponded to the circumstances of life, education and concepts of our people.
When the old plan provided for empirical basic education and was based on textbooks, the new one required religious, moral, aesthetic education and patriotic feelings, a sense of duty and love for work, respect for their condition.The new plan aimed at combating all fornication and error, religious and moral decline that was natural for the society of that time (Новий плян шкільний, 1894: 65).
The new textbooks were divided into two parts.The first one contained stories of moral content, and the second -the information about events and nature.In the second part, the passages were placed according to the season.Thus, these textbooks could be introduced at school only at the beginning of the academic year.Those who did not introduce new textbooks at the beginning of the academic year, studied according to the old ones until the end of the year (Новий плян шкільний, 1894: 65-67).
The material in the old textbooks was so scattered that often even a professional teacher was lost, and often chose what he considered to be appropriate.Whatever the student did, everything needed to be explained and expanded, and this was also done by each teacher in his / her own way and taste.
The researcher Banakh (1895) noted that the book 'Shkola narodna CH.II' intended for the second grade with Ruthenian as the language of instruction containing 165 passages, which were placed in accordance with three main principles: from closer to further, from known to unknown, from individual to complex.The style of the book was light.In that book there was already the introduction to History and Geography, that was unusual for textbooks of such a kind.It also comprised more fragments of patriotic content: 2. Native house; 17.What is your mother tongue?18. Native language; 55.Kyiv, the oldest Ruthenian city; 162.Love your native land (Банах, 1895: 91).
'Szkółka dła młodzieźy część III' contained 80 passages of moral content in the first part, but they were difficult for children.
The plan did not allow the teacher to change the order of the passages or the content, the teacher could not add details that were not in the relevant passages of the book either.
The second part of this textbook contained 44 excerpts from Geography, 33 from History, 45 from Natural Sciences, 56 poems and 9 excerpts from short stories.33 historical passages represented events mainly from the Polish history of the medieval times.Also there were 3 passages from the Ruthenian history, 7 -from the Austrian one and 1 -from the world history.To cover all passages, the teacher needed 240 hours but the plan assigned only160 hours.
Not all schools were in Dobromil and the teacher transferred the science of basic information on geography to their own area, and because no passages could be omitted, the teacher was forced to spend time on science about the outskirts of Dobromil (Миколаєвич, 1894: 175).
'Shkola narodna CH.IV' consisted of two parts: 1 -prose and poetic passages of moral content; 2 -'material' passages that interpreted Geography, History, Economy, Natural Sciences, Hygiene.The first part consisted of 29 prose and 29 poetic passages.The second part consisted of 135 passages: 110 prose and 25 poetic ones.Among the prose passages, there were 29 with geographical content, 11 -on the history of the native land, 14 -on the Austrian history, 6 -on the structure of the region and the state, 16 -on agriculture, 22 -on natural sciences, 9 -on hygiene, 2 -on inventions (Кокуревич, 1896: 10-11).
'Shkola narodna CH.III' was composed entirely on the basis of the Polish textbook 'Szkółka cz.III' and was divided into two parts.The first one contained moral passages, and the second one 'material' passages (Миколаєвич, 1896: 34).
'Shkola narodna CH.IV ' was very similar to 'Szkółka cz.IV' and contained 57 passages in the first part and 135 passages in the second one with 53 poems.Here the selection of poems was the best (Миколаєвич, 1896: 49).Mykolayevych also paid attention to unsuccessful translation of separate verses.There were 59 prosaic passages in part 1, two of which were printed in the church alphabet so that children of the Ruthenian rite could learn to read church books.
The second part was a translation of excerpts from a Polish textbook, and contained only a few selfwritten excerpts.There were 25 historical passages, they described events in the history of our region and in the Austrian history.The period of 16-18 centuries was presented after a Polish book, in passage 55 of the Union of Lublin the conquest of Russ was described as 'generous benevolence' and the author noted that Lithuania and Poland helped Rus in the liberation from the yoke of the Tatars.Interesting was the fact that in the Ruthenian reader the information about the civil war in the days of Bohdan Khmelnytsky was not mentioned, and in the Polish reader this information was given (Миколаєвич, 1896: 53-54).
Mykolayevych considered some geographical passages superfluous and recommended to provide more information about parts of the world, namely Asia, Africa, America and Australia, their inhabitants, as well as Palestine, as the place of residence of the Saviour.
46 passages from Natural Sciences and Economics gave rural children enough knowledge about agriculture.The translator, instead of asking people how different parts of the water mill were called in Rus, wrote Polish terminology in a Ruthenian book (Миколаєвич, 1896: 54).
Petryshyn reviewing the poems in the Ruthenian 'School IV' considered 17 poems either completely unsuitable or inappropriate for children at their level (some were illogical, some were suitable only for young children, the content of some was difficult to understand, some were poorly translated from Polish).
Out of the 36 more or less relevant poems, he singled out:  6 songs, which should have been supplemented with church and secular songs;  20 fragments of religious, moral and ceremonial content, the number of which he considered sufficient;  10 natural, customary and historical passages.He recommended adding at least one Christmas carol, one hayivka to the usual ones, and instead of the introduction to 'U zhnyva' or 'Obzhynky' considered as appropriate to put one folk song of the reapers.There was only one thought from the historical passages 'Na Chornomu mori'.The scholar also proposed to add poetry from the princely period, at least a part from 'Slovo o polku Ihorevim', one from the Tatar troubles and one from the Cossack times such as 'Dumu', taken from T. Shevchenko's 'Nevol'nyk') (Петришин, 1899: 161-164).He also recommended not to forget that children more than older people like to hear something fun in addition to important things.To do this, he suggested placing 2-3 colloquialisms by S. Rudansky and another humorous tale by I. Franko, such as 'The Bear Adventure' with illustrations or 'The Fox Adventure', even without the illustrations that were placed in the 'Dzvinok' in 1894 (Петришин, 1899: 164).
The most important innovation of the Bukovinian primer was the presentation of small print letters near small graphics.The author believed that taking into account the general didactic principles and special regional relations, it was advisable to study first all handwritten lowercase letters, and then printed lowercase ones (Миколаєвич, 1905: 157).
At the beginning of the Bukovynian primer, there were such words for writing and reading, which the experienced teacher considered too complicated, i.e. there was inconsistency in the selection of base words.
Among the advantages of the Bukovynian primer, Mykolayevych singled out these ones: • The children learned soft self-sounds and their writing separately and the softening of the previous consonance through self-sounding was treated separately.
• In the process of studying capital letters, a separate lecture was assigned to each letter and it had its own page (Миколаєвич, 1905: 185).
The primer provided logically related stories or descriptions in each group of reading exercises, and the reading book contained individual sentences, mostly proverbs.
Malanchuk considered it expedient to include several excerpts from the history of Rus, such as Oleg ('Prophet Oleg'), 'The Struggle with the Pechenegs' in the second edition of the ''Shkola narodna CH.II'.There https://nv.pdpu.edu.ua/ were 199 passages in the Polish textbook and only 164 in the Ruthenian one.A larger number of passages provided the choice for the teacher.The poems were better than the stories.Since memory is best trained in prose passages, he recommended to include a few prose passages like 'The Worst Orphan', i.e. written in 'red and sound language', in short sentences and having the following content: descriptions of nature, sunrise and sunset, fire, flood or historical and ethical passages to develop imagination and ethical and moral feelings in addition to memory (Маланчук, 1905: 220-221).
Verkhratsky, comparing the book 'Ruska pravopys' zi slovartsem' of 1904 with the previous edition, acknowledged the undeniable progress, not only in volume but also in content.The 1904 edition consisted of two parts: I Spelling Rules and II Glossary.The first part contained spelling rules.The second part included the most necessary expressions of colloquial speech and the most important scientific terms in grammar, geography, history, algebra, geometry, astronomy, chemistry, somatology, zoology, botany, mineralogy, logic, psychology, pedagogy, gymnastics, music, drawing, calligraphy, economics, hygiene, medicine with the appropriate Polish words (Верхратский, 1905: 310).
Morozenko held the opinion that only stagnation was visible in school textbooks and believed that the new edition differed from the previous one only in new poems (Морозенко, 1913: 118).
Ivanychuk believed that the reason for teachers' dissatisfaction with school textbooks was that textbooks complicated the work of teachers due to their volume, numerous inappropriate passages, dry and biased content, tangled, unsuitable for the children's intellectual style, terms and long sentences.Their main flaw was that the scientific material was presented in a dry way, which did not stimulate interest in books and independent reading outside the school (Іваничук, 1905: 10).
The researcher defined the textbook not only as the foundation and centre of school science, but also as a basis for the formation of worldview and knowledge of the people (Іваничук, 1905: 80).In his opinion, most of our school textbooks were almanac, almost unsystematic.The system they sometimes saw in them was a generally transferred division between moral and scientific material, as well as an adaptation of the order of the passages to the season, year, and calendar.Similar textbooks in other nations, such as the Germans, were noted for their systematic nature.
Each group of passages was a whole that had a common goal, and each individual passage was an example of а good style, simple expression, and a clear idea.The moralizing tendency of most of our passages in German textbooks has been replaced by the truth of life or a fairy tale from the animal world.
Ivanychuk noted that a characteristic feature of almost all textbooks of other nations was that the excerpts were signed by the authors (Іваничук, 1905: 82).
In his opinion, all our textbooks were based on one template, and aimed to introduce the child to a life that had as little to do with childhood as possible.Ivanychuk recommended that the compilers of future textbooks try to give children a book that would primarily interest them, would be fully understandable to them and adapted to their intellectual development (Іваничук, 1905: 84).
Havryshchuk justified the importance of visual instruction by the fact that children before school age acquired a small number of ideas, many of them were vague representations of the corresponding words.Urban children had little idea of natural objects and phenomena, while rural children had little knowledge of the environment in the city.
Visual instruction was the most important part of all science in the 1st and 2nd year of public school.Visual discussion of various subjects from the children's environment complemented and streamlined the ideas formed in children's minds before school age, new ideas and views were combined with old ones, previously acquired and thus a slow and gradual transition from children's free home life to a well-organized school occurred.By means of visual instruction, children got used to the attention and detailed examination of different objects, their parts and the relationship of one object to another, and guided their thoughts and memory.
Comparing the relationship between the subjects, the children thought, and later got used to the correct pronunciation and conversation (Гаврищук, 1909: 120).
The curriculum for public schools provided 'Preparatory exercises in language and visual aids based on the discussion and review of subjects selected from the immediate environment of children.'The state of children's mental development was taken into account when choosing subjects for discussion.Discussing names, various features, actions of objects, the schoolchildren imperceptibly began to learn languages, comparing the size, direction, position of objects imperceptibly started to understand beginnings of writing and the science of geometric shapes.The discussion of home, school, village, city, river gave children preparation for geography, and discussion of some animals and plants -for science.
The scholar recommended that in observational science one should act first analytically and then synthetically.First, the mentioned subject was discussed in detail, and then compared with other similar subjects.
Short stories and fables educated children morally, developed their imagination.Riddles made science more interesting, because the child was very happy to guess them.
During the guessing, the child was focused on the features of the object presented in the riddle, looked for a suitable object among all the discussed ones, reviewed all discussed ones and compared different features and relationships of many objects, i.e. almost compared everything he learned, developing memory and thinking.
The curriculum also included the study of easy poems for the development of memory for 1-2 years of study in a public school.The study of poetry made learning more dynamic and nurtured children's aesthetic feelings.Before memorizing, the teacher explained the content of the verse in detail so that the children could understand it.
According to Havryshchuk, poems should be studied at school, not be given as a home task, since there is no point in a student learning a poem by heart without understanding the meaning and beauty of the language.Each verse should be related to the subjects of visual science discussed.
The curriculum for public schools assigned 'Preparatory exercises to achieve a certain convenience in drawing and writing.'They drew only those subjects that were discussed during the study and which were easy to draw.Drawing practised hand and eye, memory and thinking and developed imagination and aesthetic sense (Гаврищук, 1909: 131).

Conclusion.
During the period under study, theoretical substantiation of textbooks for primary school structure, content, didactic principles of text construction began.The importance of visual instruction in primary school was emphasised.Numerous examples have shown the fact that teachers' dissatisfaction with school textbooks was due to excessive volume, numerous unsuccessful passages of texts with dry content, complex, unsuitable for the children's style, deadlines and long sentences.Their main flaw was that the material was presented in a dry and tendentious way, thus creating obstacles to the development of interest in independent reading outside the school.