Bibliophile Peeter Tulviste - Textbooks from the 19th century

The development of Estonian school education and the history of education generally were of particular interest to Peeter Tulviste, and his collection in this field is voluminous. His bookshelves contain dozens, if not hundreds, of textbooks from various periods and disciplines, ranging from primary education to university level.

The first schoolbooks played a significant role in the emergence of Estonian-language specialist terminology. While many terms used in these books have since fallen out of use, and even the names of some subjects have changed, their importance in the history of Estonian education is immense. For this reason, the exhibition aims to present as diverse a selection as possible of the earliest, 19th-century schoolbooks.

Textbooks of individual subjects did not appear in Estonia until the early 19th century. Several of these are considered culturally significant and are listed in the Red Book of Estonian Publications (ETPR) (ETPR-I for 1535–1850 and ETPR-II for 1851–1900). The first Estonian-language textbook for a single subject, published in 1806, was Arropiddamisse ehk Arwamisse-Kunst: Katseks öppetud Eesti-Ma Rahwa heaks ja kassuks by Peter Heinrich von Frey, the pastor of Püha church. Unfortunately, this book could not be found in Tulviste’s collection. There is, however, Georg Gottfried Marpurg’s Weikenne oppetusse nink luggemisse ramat. Tarto ma-rahwa kooli laste tarvis, published a year earlier, which includes texts for reading in Estonian alongside religious instruction.

The most varied part of Tulviste’s collection consists of schoolbooks from the third quarter of the 19th century. Many of these were published in multiple editions. The exhibition features the first edition of Ferdinand Theodor von Gebhardt’s arithmetic textbook Koli-ramat. Koli ramato neljas jaggo. Arwamisse ehk rehkendamisse ramat, mis koli-laste kassuks on üllespandud, published in 1854. Two textbooks by Johann Georg Schwartz are also on display: the second edition of the first physics textbook and the first two-part history textbook.

The exhibition shows three schoolbooks by Carl Robert Jakobson: textbooks for reading, geography and singing, illustrated by his brother Eduard Magnus Jacobson. Compared to the schoolbooks by Gebhardt and Schwartz, the language quality in Jakobson’s books is at an entirely new level.

From Juhan Kunder, the exhibition features a basic natural science textbook for primary schools and the first textbook in Estonian on geology.

Also, two ABC books are included – for Estonian and for Russian – and a German language textbook, and also the first music textbook, published in 1864.

Find out more about the exhibition here.