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My wife found a cool 1896 Harper's School Geography textbook at an antique shop and got it for me, and it had the original pupil's name and signature (and date of 1897!) written on the front matter, but there are also a few other handwritten notes and the name of the school itself... it's such a neat little self-contained time capsule.

It also boggles my mind:

1. How accurate it was, in terms of map fidelity

2. The quality of the illustrations and prints, many of which are in several (what I imagine was offset?) colors!

3. How well it's held up. The cover looks essentially completely trashed, but the interior of the book's pages are almost entirely intact, and in great shape. (I'm not worried of them turning to dust in my hands, for instance.)

It's always fascinating to see just how little has changed, especially among schoolkids in nigh on 300 years!

Here's essentially the exact book I'm talking about, so it's not _that_ uncommon. Looks to be in almost identical condition, too: https://www.ebay.com/itm/184283104558

Prolly a nitpick, but closer to 100 than 300 years. Rather significantly, too.

I believe the GP was referencing the posted article with the 300 years comment.

i feel that by the turn of the 20th century we generally had fully accurate maps. 1897 is not really all that long ago - we were well on our way to discovering special relativity at that point

> by the turn of the 20th century we generally had fully accurate maps

New Zealand may having something to say about that...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission_of_New_Zealand_from_m...

i’m not sure why an article describing the modern day accidental omission of NZ in maps is really relevant. they also often exclude Antarctica - not from lack of knowledge of the existence

I wonder whether a YouTube video, a post on Instagram, or similar artifact of our modern world would ever be able to survive 350 years. This …longevity(?) seems to be something that is unique to physical objects like books, printed photographs, or paper cuttings. In 350 years, will we look back at this time and considering it another dark age because so little of the content we are producing will still exist in an accessible form?

Books are not at all special. Only a very small fraction of writings from antiquity are still available to us. Some exist only as lumps of carbon in the Herculaneum papyri and haven't been seen by humans in a thousand years.

Overall, most books ever printed have been destroyed. It's just that we've printed a lot of them. It's mostly a survivorship and recency bias.

We're barely into our first century of producing digital artifacts. Some things have been lost, of course, but we do still have a lot of information about the very earliest machines. We still have some of the first programs, some of the first machines are still running today.

We might be able to preserve things in the very long term if we can convince ourselves it's worth the effort, but more than likely the far future will have lost as much from our time as we have from antiquity.

Is it due to a bias on our part that we think that it's fascinating? Why would people be different? People haven't changed, we just have phones now.

> we just have phones now

That’s a huge understatement. We have electricity, refrigeration, medicine, mass transit (including international), human rights, enormous increases in population, fast media, internet, nuclear weapons, universal literacy, factory lines, spaceships, cities of many millions of people. Anyone that’s played Civilisation knows how far the tech tree goes once you hit the Enlightenment.

And you can see how much internet and social media have changed society, so imagine the impact of all those things combined on the human brain.

Right but people, their nature, hasn't changed.

I find this a vague, reductionist view. When I have dinner with my family today, there’s more than one nature, while my own nature has changed in the last 10 years. To say most people have had the same nature at least for the last 300 years is only true if you reduce “nature” to something so banal that it means nothing at all.

The behavior of one person over a single lifetime really has nothing at all to do with the behavior of humans as a species over the span of millennia.

Over the course of our history as a species, people have roughly always had the same drive. The same types of people have always existed and always follow the same patterns. Compare Alexander and Napoleon. Aristotle and Freud. Pliny and Darwin. Follow the lines of philosophy, science, engineering, politics, military all the way from antiquity to today. Each has a common thread woven back to the beginning of civilization.

You are not that different from someone living in ancient Rome, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise. Times and culture change, but people have always been what we are now, good and bad both. We have the same drive for greed, generosity, community, solitude, family, power, glory. The wheel of Ka turns and turns.

You should study ancient history, it's pretty fascinating for exactly this reason. People are frequently quite surprised to learn just how similar ancient people were to how we see ourselves now. This is also one of the biggest mistakes people make when studying history: underestimating ancient peoples and framing them as some sort of primitive undeveloped animals. The pyramids were just as ancient and mysterious to the Romans as they are to us to this day.

The distribution has not changed. Nobody said that an individual data point is fixed and that all data points are equal.

I think what was intended was that _human_ nature hasn't changed.

I think anyone making that claim is going to have to define human nature in a way that has eluded several fields of study for generations.

The claim is that humans have changed. Tell me how humans are physically different today than 400 years ago.

I have an "autograph book" that belonged to my great-great grandmother, with many signatures from around 1886. It's the equivalent of kids signing a yearbook.

What boggles my mind is how incredible all these kids' handwriting was. Precise, flowing, beautiful cursive.

It's also a quality cover and paper.

A few years ago I visited a high school for some competition that one of my kids was in. They had posters of each graduating class going back decades, and most of the photos had the kid's signature underneath. It was amazing to compare the signatures from the 1970s and 1980s to the modern ones. The old ones were neat, and showed a lot of individual style. As time went on they looked less confident and showed less individual variation -- most of them looked like standard elementary school cursive. The newest ones were the worst, some were a shaky-looking cursive, some were just printed.

Penmanship, and even just ordinary cursive writing, is just not taught anymore. I understand that it's hardly needed in today's world, but there's something about putting thoughts to paper by hand that enforces some deliberate thinking, unlike keyboarding or speech-to-text. Some studies show that taking class notes by hand is more effective than using a keyboard or recording.

I was reading a book (1) which talked about that and emphasized the importance of writing on formulating thoughts and ideas. The funny thing is, it seems it has less to do with writing being some magical input method that makes you think better, and more to do with the fact that writing is just plain slow and forces you to think through and sort of sum up your thoughts as you go. So ironically, it being an inefficient method actually has a positive! But I still feel like you could get most of the way there by just being more deliberate when using a different input method, for example, forcing yourself to stop and think as you type, or using outlining tools, or maybe even artificially limiting your input speed...

(1) "How to take Smart Notes" by Soenke Ahrens

I mean the act of signing things is also less common today. My parents put their signatures on credit card terminals and employment agreements; I grew up with contactless payments and Docusign.

looks like you made a sale. Almost makes me wonder if this was an elaborate ploy to promote your ebay store. In which case, well done

My mom lived in a historical house when she was a kid in the 60s. Since then, the house has become a museum. There are a lot of "artifacts" on display that "came from the 1800s" that are actually just toys my moms brothers made. My mom got a good laugh about it when she took me to visit the place.

I'm sure these finds must have dated in some way to verify the authenticity, but I always think back to seeing my uncles toys on display as if they were historical artifacts when I see stuff like this.

A lot of these historical house “museums” are a pleasant diversion for tourists more than anything else. Note how they are all haunted - ghost tours are pretty easy money

I have never come across a house museum that claims to be haunted. Must be a cultural thing that doesn't exist in Belgium. Possibly because loads of things are ancient here anyway, no need to embellish with more nonsense I guess.

yes, probably an american thing. i am very much not a fan of these “ghost tours”

>> sure these finds must have dated in some way to verify the authenticity ....

What happens if the uncle used very old wood or cloth to make the toys. Will the dating technique be able to find the actual age ?

Dating is done with more than just material analysis. Evidence of tools used to make the toy, techniques for things like joins and stitching, etc. can all be indicative of methods that can give at least a lower bound. How applicable method differentiation is to this specific case obviously depends on a number of things.

Has your mom got in touch with the museum to tell them that, so they can improve? If not why not?

I honestly don't know. I imagine not.

It’s not their mothers responsibility to correct their incompetence, or (imo) more likely negligence and information falsification.

A) I didn't say it was their responsibility

B) I don't wanna assume malice where incompetence will do

If you walked into a old house and found a random toy, would you automatically assume the toy is as old as the house?

If you saw something broken that's not your responsibility would you fix it?

I know the answer in your case, but believe me that a lot of people would.

With his rhetorical question, he's saying it must be malice because no museum operator would be that incompetent. They're actively making a false claim to their customers. They could have just not said anything about the age of the toys since they know they didn't verify it. I think you can see this must be the case since you didn't answer his question.

In my country, if a business makes a factual claim about its products, it has to have already verified the correctness of it to some reasonable level and have the documentation so show that. There's no room for this "oh, I just assumed it was true because I'm incompetent" excuse.

> you can see this must be the case

What I can see is the case is that you're both way too confident in your inferences for a bunch of mind readers. Why not just call them up and find out? Oh right "not my job".

And btw "no X could be that Y" last time I heard that line was in a sitcom.

If you care so much, why don’t you call them?

Because I don't have their contact.

Is that another way of saying “not my job”?

> If you saw something broken that's not your responsibility would you fix it?

If it were a genuine mistake and not fraudulent, yes.

> I know the answer in your case, but believe me that a lot of people would.

Weren’t you just talking about not assuming malice?

I wasn't assuming malice from you, I was assuming that either too lazy or too self-centered. No malice.

You can't get one in today huh.

I’m not sure that you see my point.

Maybe they just made a mistake.

There's no mention in the article as to why the cuttings were beneath the floorboards. My guess is one girl got mad at another and slipped her classwork between the boards. Possible since this predated tongue & groove (the technology angle).

According to another article, they just slipped through the cracks on the floor from time to time and accumulated over the years.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/london/sutton-house-a...

I imagine the debris also included coins and the like.

Reminds of this story where they found paper planes in the school house ceiling dating before 1910 - https://youtu.be/A555LYvAPp0?t=16m08s

I wonder how old they were, they are quite good!

I've often wondered if people back then were more skilled at music and art overall since there were fewer mindless leisure activities.

But, at the same time, I'm sure a guitar or ink and paper were comparatively expensive, so who knows.

Plus people could drink at 10 back then, so I'm sure they found plenty of mindless distraction.

The majority of instrument makers of that time had to work almost solely to the market which was primarily working musicians who generally did not make much money, they did not have a massive middle class buying their instruments like we have today so most instruments were not terribly expensive. But music did not become a past time for the average person for a couple centuries with the rise of the guitar which was cheap on a whole new level and much cheaper than the lutes it replaced. The guitar gave us a good sounding instrument that was easy to make and easy to play without years of training and all the luthiers, musicians and composers were hopping on that band wagon to make a little extra cash which only fueled the romantic era guitar craze. The vast bulk of innovation when it comes to the acoustic guitar happened in this period and most of the "new" ideas we see these days were actually done centuries ago and a surprising amount of it by Rene LaCote who does not get anywhere near the recognition or credit he deserves.

I'd assume singing was much more ubiquitous in the past, since it was one of the few ways ordinary people could entertain themselves/each other (this was clearly the case well into the 1900s in most, if not all, Western societies).

What changed was the mentality, how the average person related too music. Before the romantic era most people could not afford any instrument beyond a folk instrument and certainly could not afford lessons or time to dedicate to practicing. So singing may have come out of going to church and people so inclined would sing as they went about their day but they would not sit down with some sheet music and practice, that was for the well off. Folk instruments tended to be fairly limited in what they could do and did not require much in training or practice although some people have taken these simple instrument to great extremes and done wonderful things with them.

During the romantic era we had the rising middle class with more freetime and money to spare and all those musicians eager to have some more income from giving lessons. The composers started writing lesson books and methods suited to the amateur and the luthiers started building instruments for them including variations like the Decacorde by Carulli and La Cote [0] which was meant to be an easy instrument for the amateur.

Should mention, with "romantic era" I am not really referring to the literal era but the school and tradition of the romantic guitar as the dominant school which goes until the Spanish guitar and Western steel string took over around the turn of the 20th give or take depending on where you are in the world and how you want to look at things. The romantic school still exists to this day, the parlor guitar is a romantic guitar in everything but name and the Viennese guitar is still going in parts of Europe.

0. https://www.carlyle-circle-30.is.ed.ac.uk/showcase/guitar-de...

> But, at the same time, I'm sure a guitar or ink and paper were comparatively expensive, so who knows.

When I once came across the price for paper in mid 18th century Germany (I did not keep a reference unfortunately), I compared it to the estimated average annual wage of that time and used today's average annual wage to calculate a price in Euro. The result: the price of a DIN A4 sized piece of paper (623.7 cm²) was aprox. 1 Euro. Not cheap, but in principle still affordable in low quantities for most people. And this is half of today's typical price for one such sheet of handmade paper.

Fun aside re: guitars:

Guitars as we know them are actually quite new, and going by "350 years" in the article, didn't really exist when these bits of paper were dropped through the floorboards.

Vermeer's The guitar player dates back to just over 350 years ago, shows a baroque guitar, and as far as I am aware these were complex, really expensive things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o-TOg-y_BI

I would guess there were lots of lutes and gitterns, though; they are relatively less complex. And I would absolutely think that the children who went to this school saw, owned and were expected to play musical instruments; they came from those sorts of families.

Can’t remember where I first heard but in the 18th century in England they had wooden cat gin vending machines. You walk up, say a magic phrase, put a coin in and it would pour gin through its paw. This was apparently a way to skirt a licensing law.

https://www.gin1689.com/blogs/news/puss-mew

> the first vending machine was specifically created to serve gin

The first vending machine was actually first century and dispensed holy water. It was actually mechanized similarly to pre-electronic vending machines. https://www.logicvending.co.uk/history-vending-machines

We used to hide fruit in sockets with a small piece of paper signed "Decay Inc". Looking forward to a Smithsonian article about it in 350 years.

Too bad “hean” was a misspelling. A hitherto unknown mythical bird would have been even more interesting. Or was it a species that became extinct?

Standard spelling was only being proposed around this time, so it's not a misspelling.

The article says it is a misspelling.

The fact that misspelling doesn't have 3 s's is one of the great tragedies of English orthography.

> missspelling

I was suprised to see that claimed as a misspelling. The lettering was very neat, nearly perfect otherwise, so with that evident attention to detail I thought a misspelling was unlikely. I assumed it was just an older variation of the spelling.

Why where they so much more skilled than today's schoolchildren?

> Why where they so much more skilled than today's schoolchildren?

Because today's school children spend a little more time studying mathematics and science. Music, arts and crafts took up a much larger part of 17th century girls education. Upper and middle class girls were being taught what they needed to be good wives.

> The school provided lessons in writing, reading, math, music and art. The girls studied paper cutting alongside other crafts, such as embroidery and needlework

If the only way you could entertain yourself is either make something interesting or (maybe) read the Bible, you'd be very good at making things.

Because that's what they practiced, presumably. Given that they misspelled a 3 letter word, I suspect they were better at arts and crafts than writing?

I wonder if that misspelling is some kind of inside joke lost to time.

Don't you know that language changes over 350 years? Why do you say it is a misspelling? Why do you judge them by today's rules?

(I'm not the grandparent poster, but:)

OED https://www.oed.com/dictionary/hen_n1?tab=forms#1717329 says "hean" was never a standard spelling of "hen". 350 years ago would be the late 1600s when there were "hen" and "henn" and "henne". (I don't know exactly when in the 1600s the latter two stopped being used; 350 years ago might actually be too late for those.)

On the other hand, the idea that for every word there is a single Correct spelling, as opposed to "write it however you like so long as it's clear to the reader", wasn't so well established in the late 1600s. But I think most 17th-century English folks would have regarded "hean" as wrong, not merely unusual.

(The article itself calls "hean" a misspelling, though of course that doesn't prove much.)

Well, it's an attested spelling now so it will have to be added to future dictionaries. After all, the girls were probably native speakers.

Its explicitly said in the article that its a misspelling.

Yes, I read that, and I obviously disagree with the article as well.

No cable, radio serials, abundant and cheap ready-made toys, recorded music, game boys, smart phones, pre-made mass manufactured decorations for nearly no money, dirt-cheap puzzle books at every store, clothes so cheap they’re disposable, et c.

If you want creative and skillful culture to be mass culture, just make stuff really expensive and eliminate recording and mechanical reproduction. Elevate the social and financial rewards of sub-superstar levels of craft, art, and creativity. We’re losing those things because the value of them’s been driven into the ground.

Were they?

Look at the perfectly printed writing, even in italics, and the delicate crosshatching shading.

You’re judging two wildly different generations of children based on one of them being able to do something the other one wasn’t even thought.

Imagine training a chihuahua to do tricks, then looking at an untrained golden retriever, not even try to teach them, and saying “why are chihuahuas so much smarter than golden retrievers?”

No one said "smarter", they said "more skilled".

A perfectly legitimate answer to that question might be that we stopped teaching them.

> No one said "smarter", they said "more skilled".

No one said dogs, either, they said schoolchildren. It’s an analogy. Either way, it makes zero difference to the point. You could change my word to “skilled” and it would work the same. Skills are learned and thought, that’s what matters.

> A perfectly legitimate answer to that question might be that we stopped teaching them.

Which is what I wrote as the first sentence. The second is merely an analogy to exemplify that notion.

Well, presumably outliers exist. I don't think we have a large enough sample to conclude anything. Pretty sure there are plenty of children these days who are significantly more "skilled" (just like back then).

Of course modern writing/drawing utensils are on an entirely different level and paper was very expensive back then e.g. an average labourer supposedly only made enough per day to purchase less than 100 sheets, so practising was expensive.

Oh, agreed! I think the premise of the question was wrong, I just also think this answer was based on a misunderstanding of the question.

There are kids today that can draw that well too. The handwriting, probably not, but we do not teach them that level of handwriting.

Very nice. Let’s see Paul Allen’s schoolwork.

Sorry but that paper looks too white.

IIRC paper was mainly made from linen or cotton back then and it actually was less likely to turn yellow than more modern wood pulp paper (which was only invented in the early 1800s)

Paper made from textile is slightly alkaline and contains very little lignin which is highly reactive and causes paper to turn yellow over time. Pulp paper is also more acidic which also makes it more susceptible to degradation.

You have no idea of the white balance settings used.

I'm assuming they use correct settings.

Earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41045233

Thanks! Macro-expanded:

Lost by Schoolgirls: A display of 17th century papercuts - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41045233 - July 2024 (20 comments)

Is there a public script for macroexpanding? Or is parent commenter a moderator? (if the latter, thanks for your work!)

Moderator. Check out the profile, especially the end.

Haha, I'm tickled. What aspect of my (intentionally quite long) profile made you think this? I am a regular user who appreciates HN, when something seems off I email hn@ycombinator.com.

All my macro-expansions are done manually, it only takes a minute or less. Don't let the programmatic appearance deceive you, I'm just decently consistent. Even at my $dayjob, for PRs people have repeatedly accused me of / assumed I'm running a linter when it's just me and my brain trying to make things easier for future brains down the road.

I'll take it as a compliment. Cheers.

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