Historians Shy Away from the Dominant Role of Classroom Artefacts

Hamilton, Patents of Invention, page1 (of 7)

Patents of Invention: A neglected source in the history of education[1]

David Hamilton

9 Ferry Orchard
Stirling FK9 5ND
United Kingdom

ABSTRACT: Education is a technology, a production system whose elements comprise material, linguistic and conceptual inventions. To this extent, the technology of education embraces everything from notched sticks to benchmarks. This multi-dimensional sense of educational technology is useful whenever attempts are made to understand educational practice. To this end, my paper examines a small corner of the historical or technological record, ‘patents of invention’, a set of sources that has seldom, if ever, been used in English-language histories of education. To evaluate this source, my attention focuses on the ‘abridgments’, published between 1855 and 1930, where patent applications were grouped according to their use (e.g. as ‘furniture’ or ‘stationery’); and I will illustrate the diversity of these records by reference to an invention – the school desk - that was prominent over the same period.

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Historians shy away from the dominant role of classroom artefacts’
(Lawn & Grosvenor, 2005, p. 8)

The above quotation comes from Materialities of Schooling: Design-Technology-Objects-Routines, edited by Martin Lawn and Ian Grosvenor. Their volume is a pioneering effort to draw educationists away from a narrow, reductionist conception of artefact, one that is still dominant in the field of educational technology. Yet, in doing so – and as the editors prudently acknowledge- the field they open up is ‘so understudied’ that, as a result, its ‘landscape’ can be projected and charted in many different ways.

What projection, then, do I favour on this occasion? I have chosen to write as an educationist in search of my past. I am not a disoriented architect trying to apply panopticonology to the design of educational buildings. I am not a theory-inclined sociologist seeking to re-engineer the field of actor-network theory so that it can be applied to school life. Nor am I a confused mathematician trying to find my way around the topology - or spaces - of virtual schooling. No. I am just an unrepentant pedagogue who has repeatedly asked himself: ‘what’s a nice guy like me doing in a place like this?’.

In the following essay, I start by bouncing ideas off Lawn and Grosvenor’s claim. I continue by reviewing the world of educational practice as revealed in patent records of the second half of the nineteenth century. And I conclude with a sketch of the representations of school desks included in the UK patent records between 1875 and 1910. Overall, my attention is to engage the attention of the educational research community, with the aim of encouraging others to take up where Lawn, Grosvenor and myself have left off.

Like Lawn and Grosvenor, I have been troubled by what constitutes an artefact. I can understand such artefacts when they are found in the back of teachers’ cupboards; or when they find their way into museums expressly established as storehouses or repositories. Meanwhile, I appreciate that human history has also been shaped by artefacts whose traces in the educational record are less permanent. Here I am thinking, among other things, of language as an artefact, itself associated with other historical artefacts such as alphanumeric systems, the concepts of zero and infinity or, indeed, conceptions of human salvation and progress.

Aware of this problem of furnishing a definition of artefact, I suggest that the history of artefacts in education stretches from the notches on sticks used in the Palaeolithic era to the idea of benchmarks, equally rough-hewn, used by school management gurus in the 21st century.

So, how do we embrace this wider, historical sense of educational artefact? Lawn and Grosvenor confront this problem by reference to two ideas: culture and history. First, they use the idea of culture – a framework of assumptions, values and relationships that, ultimately, is ‘defined by its focus on material evidence’ (p. 8). Thus, just as it is possible to refer to the stone or bronze age in human history, so I assume it is equally valid to speak of the culture of the sand-pit, the moveable desk, the worksheet, or even the yoghurt pot in the 20th century history of the English schooling.

The weakness of this approach, as Lawn and Grosvenor indicate, is that material artefacts are not static or inert. Rather, they also serve as mediating agencies. Cuisenaire rods, they suggest, are not ‘simple pieces of wood’ (p. 8). Each one also has attributes (e.g. as a ‘mathematical learning tool’, p.8) that influences its use. Educational artefacts, therefore are ‘activated’ or animated within a set of organisational, social and cultural relations which ascribe ‘value’ to the artefact. They bring it to life, investing it with purpose. Moreover, this mediation is mutual. An artefact, like the blackboard, disturbs organisational, social and cultural relations. As Lawn and Grosvenor conclude, ‘users are shaped by the artefact’; they are ‘not independently active in relation to it’ (p. 9).

By the same token, the culture in which this mutual activation occurs is not static. It is a dynamic system of relationships. As such, it acquires a history – a past, present and future. This is Lawn and Grosvenor’s second line of argument - that social systems which include mediating agencies are best seen as changing social systems. Yet, at the same time, they acknowledge that there is a tension between cultural and historical perspectives on the analysis of artefacts in schoolroom life. From both perspectives, activity is shaped by artefacts but, when viewed from an historical perspective, the outcome is the dynamism of social change, not the cultural stasis of structural functionalism.

Their standpoint, that is, has affinities with the holism of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). And a subsequent review (viz. Roth & Lee, 2007) is helpful in augmenting and clarifying Lawn & Grosvenor’s view of materialities. Three ideas span both fields of inquiry. First, CHAT accepts that ‘mass schooling’ is an ‘historical activity’, like farming and commerce, that has contributed to the maintenance of human societies; secondly, it claims that the ‘object of activity…exists twice’: first as a ‘material entity in the world and second as a vision or image’; and finally, CHAT gives prominence to the role that artefacts play in the mediation of the ‘subject-object relation’ (Roth & Lee, 2007, pp. 198-9).

Vygotsky’s notion of the zone of potential development (ZPD) illustrates these ideas. Schooling, education or upbringing are historical activities insofar as they embody the ‘accumulated history of human ingenuity or creativity’. The objects of schooling, education or upbringing (viz. learners) have two states - their present status and a status that is desired. And learners make the transition from one status to the other via activities steered by an adult (teacher) or by the learners’ more capable peers. Learning, that is, arises from the mutual exchange of teachers and learners, via the ‘evolving, complex, structure of mediated and collective agency’ (Roth & Lee, 2007, pp. 198-9) [2].

As Vygotsky realised, however, there is another side to the materialities of schooling. Many of the artefacts are not, in a conventional sense, material. They include the words, signs and symbols that have been acquired and internalised in the course of human development. Thus, I prefer to speak of the materiality – singular - of schooling as something that also exists twice: once as the material culture of schooling and secondly as the words, signs and symbols that, as Lawn and Grosvenor acknowledge, render any technology as a ‘social construction’ (p. 9), a combination of the actual and the ideal. Consider, for instance, how this idea would apply to the study of catechisms, textbooks, black/whiteboards let alone progressive methods or virtual learning environments. In short, to study the materiality of schooling is more than to study classroom artefacts in isolation. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that historians shy away from acknowledging and studying the ‘dominant role of classroom artefacts’.

The foregoing remarks are important to the remainder of this paper. While the object of my investigation is the record of patents granted since the seventeenth century, I draw attention to these records because of the additional light that they might throw upon the materiality of schooling.

Patents of Invention

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), a patent is a document containing some ‘privilege, right, office, title or property’ which, in commerce, comprises a ‘licence conferring the sole right to manufacture, sell, or deal in a product or commodity’. The earliest recorded use - in the sense of a grant or charter - appears in the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1387-1395). Gradually, however, such grants were seen not only as a positive right (e.g. to make coloured glass for Eton and other college chapels) but also as a negative right – that is, the right to prevent others from using such privileges.

It seems, from the standard history (van Dulken, 1999), that the award of patents proved controversial in the seventeenth century discussions of free trade, a tension which has survived in subsequent discussion of intellectual property rights. Such controversy, however, led to the Statue of Monopolies (1624) which provided for 14-year terms (or shorter) for the ‘sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures within this realm [viz. England & Wales] to the true and first inventor or inventors of such manufactures’. The 14-year term enabled the patentee to teach two generations of apprentices before the monopoly was dissolved.

According to van Dulken, the award of patents was ‘cumbersome, slow and expensive’ such that, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the offices of the Attorney-General and the Solicitor -General reformed patent registration, culminating in the Patent Law Amendment Act (1852). This created a single patent office for the British Isles (abolishing separate offices for Ireland and Scotland) and, among other things, established The Patent Office which operated in the heart of London’s legal neighbourhood (off Chancery Lane) between 1852 and the 1980s.

From 1852, the Patent Office published annual reports; the Patent Office Library was opened to the public in 1855; in 1964, the Patent Office Library became part of the British Museum Library and, in 1973, a branch of the British Library. Prior to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property in 1883, the major patenting countries were Britain, France and the USA. They were joined by Germany in 1877. But it was not until after World War II, that International Patent Offices began systematic cooperation. A Patent Cooperation Treaty was signed in 1970, coming into force in 1978; and a European Patent Convention came into force in the same year. Following publication of international patents on the internet after 1998 (see Esp@cenet), the value of national patent libraries has diminished.

When van Dulken wrote his ‘guide for researchers’, 14 British Libraries held copies of the printed matter published through the National Patent Library (viz. Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Sheffield). The material I examined for this paper - which is not fully available in the Coventry Library - comprises the patent ‘abridgements’ produced between 1855 and 1930. The value of these abridgements is that they allow subject searches since they are grouped according to a system of classification. Otherwise searching must be done by means of patent numbers, named individuals or companies.

The abridgement categories for 1855-1908 include ‘Bell, gongs, fog-horns, sirens and whistles’, ‘closets, urinals, baths, lavatories’, ‘furniture and upholstery’, ‘writing and stationery’. The classification system used for the abridgments varied over time. Thus, for instance, the category ‘books’ could also include ‘copybook’. By 1905, the sub-heading ‘desks, school’ included only ‘interconnected desks or seats’; and, after 1909, the category ‘seats’ is present, but not ‘desks’.

As these examples suggest, it is not easy to interpret the fluid taxonomies produce by the London Patent Office. Nevertheless, these complications also serve as an invitation to look more closely at the patent record. My overall judgement is that they can, indeed, be a useful source in the history of education. Yet, at the same time, they are not easily interpreted – for at least three reasons.

First, the patent record is merely the record of patent applications. It is not a record of inventions, adaptions or modifications, particularly those made before 1855. Thus, the patent record is not exhaustive. Secondly, the applications merely describe artefacts that could be manufactured; they rarely describe such artefacts in terms of the practices which they are intended to mediate. For instance, most of the patents relating to blackboards merely provide information on chemical that might be used to create a washable writing surface, not on where and how a blackboard might be used. Thirdly, very little indication is given about the intended users and purchasers of the new artefact. It is difficult, therefore, to locate them socially and economically as well as technically or chronologically.

Nevertheless, the patent record remains a mine of information relevant to the history of education. To illustrate this claim, here are some interpretations drawn from of a series of patents of invention –those relating to the nineteenth-century school desk.

School Desks – some nineteenth-century observations

As Lawn and Grosvenor suggest, the study of artefacts is also the study of ‘what matters’. According to the record, what mattered in the latter part of the nineteenth century related to literacy, bodily disposition and, to a lesser extent, the wider organisation of schooling. [Hereafter the references relate to class 52 in the taxonomy of patents (i.e. ‘furniture’); and the figures given refer to the year of the patent and its number (for that year).]

Popular literacy
The general picture of literacy that emerges is that desk design was linked to changing conceptions of popular literacy. For instance, were the occupants of the desks using slates or paper, pens or pencils? And were the desks used to accommodate books?

Thus, there is an early reference to inkwells (1867/370), but ‘slate slits’ are included in a later patent (1871/186) with a groove for ‘pens and pencils’ appearing in the same year (1871/2783). Likewise, the existence of books figures in the record from the early 1870s. A book ‘rest’ is recorded in 1871/1971; a book rest is included below the writing surface of the desk in 1872/1890 which could be ‘boxed up to form a locker for each scholar’ (1873/3642). And, by 1872, the presence of a book box can be discerned (1872/1680) which, in the same year, was also described as a ‘closed receptacle’ (1872/3201). By 1876 there is the first illustration of a closed ‘locker’ desk with a hinged lid (1877/46) and an integral seat (1877/3363). Meanwhile, inkwells with ‘sliding’ covers had appeared in 1873/119. Finally, by 1888 desks appeared designed to be moved on ‘casters or rollers’.

Bodily disposition
The relevance of desk design to bodily disposition appears in the early part of the latter half of the nineteenth century. The provision of foot boards (1867/370) also meant they could be used as ‘kneeling boards’ (1869/1961) or foot rails that had become adjustable by 1873/119. Meanwhile, desks were produced in rows with seats that could be raised (1870/1441) to allow for the ‘passage of a person’. Moreover, by 1872 pupils were expected to be able to stand in their desk (1872/2992). By the 1880s, the impact of the hygiene movement was evident. Designs were advanced that supported the ‘lower part of the spine’ (1880/990; also 1894/20919). By 1893, the ‘Hygienic School Furniture Company’ was submitting its own patents (e.g. 1893/10613); and by the 1990s desks were being designed to reduce the risk that pupils would trap their fingers in the hinged lid (e.g. 1896/832).

The wider organisation of schooling
As noted, the abridgements provide limited amounts of information on the wider organisation of schooling (e.g. the use of classrooms and galleries). For example, when reference is made to pencils or pencil sharpeners, are these lead pencils or slate pencils? Likewise, what is the significance of the fact that the infrastructure of desks began to be made of wrought iron after 1873/1028? And could the metal ‘standards’ used to scaffold desks be linked to the classification system used in British elementary schools. Putting the same question in another way, why was the American system of ‘grading’ not adopted - given the stepped structure of galleries which is still reported in the patent records as late as 1894/14408?

Nevertheless, an important feature of school desks, and one that distinguished them from other writing desks was that they were part of an ensemble. Certainly there is evidence of rows of desks (187/1400) which could be screwed to the floor (1873/3642) or hoisted to assist in classroom cleaning (1893/24618).

My own feeling is that relatively little is recorded about the wider organisation of schooling because this aspect of the use of artefacts received little attention from inventors. They worked, by this time, in a market situation. They were producing commodities; and they regarded themselves as ‘independently active’ in the creation of such artefacts, leaving attention to matters of market placement to others. Indeed, one of the features of the abridgements is that very little reference is given to companies that might have marketed and promoted these designs. Possible reasons for this absence is that until the 1907 Patents and Designs Act it was not clear that companies were able to obtains patents in their own right (van Dulken, 1999, p. 90). Nevertheless, companies such as the Hygienic School Furniture Company (1893/10613), the Scholastic Trading Company (1894/2512), the North of England School Furniture Company (1902/25177) and the American School Furniture Company (1903/7202) appear before that date.

Another absence that I have noted is that there is scant reference to the artefacts associated with educational ideas. Insofar as authors like Joseph Lancaster, Robert Owen, Samuel Wilderspoon and David Stow travelled the country to publicise their ideas, did they also sell artefacts associated with their intellectual inventions? I cannot find any reference to these authors or, indeed, to the classroom artefacts produced by Fröbelian organisations. My only finding that links material and intellectual artefacts is that Maria Montessori chose to patent ‘models for teaching writing and geometry’ in 1912/6706.

Conclusion

This 3000-word essay has been written pour encourager les autres. It has four elements. First, it offers an analysis of what counts as the materiality of schooling. Second it identifies an accessible source that seems to have been neglected by educationists. Thirdly, it implies that this source material -the abridged patent records of the nineteenth century - might furnish the basis of one or more PhD theses. And finally, it suggests that this material might be ideal for one category of artefact that mediates the academy – the part-time PhD student.