Textbooks: a World of Knowledge

Author: | Posted: 20.02.2012

During my school days, I was called a geek back by my friends. Though I never understood why, sometime I felt that might be my attraction towards my text book was a reason for that. It’s been a long time since I carried my text books in my bag; still those were the golden memories for me. Even today also, whenever I notice a school student carrying the bulky bag full with text books, I get excited. There is so much of wealth in it that one can steal from. The wealth is of knowledge. One can attain endless knowledge from only a textbook even. A textbook can be defined as ‘instruction about any branch of study that is given manually. Textbooks are mostly brought out as per the demands of the educational institutions. Now textbooks are also available in internet as online electronic books or e-books. But, most of the textbooks are published in printed format.

The concept of textbooks started from Greece. The Greeks used to write textbooks for imparting education. Earlier, textbooks were basically used by the teachers and tutors to provide instructions to the students and also to teach themselves. Around 2,500 years ago, stories were recited aloud and people used to memorize each and every words of the story teller. Slowly the introduction of writing helped people not to memorize every word. They could go through the writings as many times as they wanted. In the 15th century, books were invented. Johannes Gutenberg, a German metal smith constructed a wooden-screw printing press to move the images of melted metal alloy onto paper. Gutenberg Bible is the iconic large scale printing effort that Gutenberg has shown in the 1450s which was translated in Latin from the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament.

In Europe education was compulsory; it led to the rise of textbooks more. Till the 19th century, textbooks were made mandatory as primary teaching instrument in most of the schools and most of the children. New England Primer of the 18th century and McGuffey Readers of the 19th century were the two textbooks of historical meaning in the United States.The technological advancements have changed the interest of students in textbooks. Earlier, when there were no e-books or PDF books, students had to consult textbooks. But, now students hardly go through the textbooks. They instead, take help from the electronic books.Are e-books worth enough? Though, the thought varies from individual to individual. But, E-books do not let the students to bring out facts from the books which are necessary. At times there many things can’t be found in E-books which are there in books.

I still believe students who make textbooks their friends, never face any problem in regard of concepts. Going through textbooks also help in improving the level of patience among students. The more students read textbooks, the more their arrays of knowledge broaden up. I still find the school textbooks interesting to go through. Whenever I recall my school days it’s the textbooks which I fantasize. Nothing can be best than textbooks. I have still kept the stack of my favorite textbooks and especially the English literature textbooks.



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