In anticipation of the solar eclipse in August 2017, Minjie Chen delved into the collection to see what there was about the subject.  She found some wonderful things to share with our readers and it’s worth running again in time for this weekend!

That is the soothing promise made in the title of a booklet published in London in 1836, in anticipation of the annular eclipse that would be visible in the northern part of Great Britain on May 15 of the same year. As the clock is ticking steadily towards the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, Team Cotsen became curious about how exactly eclipses and other astronomical knowledge have been explained to children in the past. Were eclipses truly made easy to understand for them?

To be honest and fair, even in the digital era when information is purportedly one click away, and with the aid of instructional animations and videos freely available on the Internet, my not-so-young mind/head starts spinning whenever it tries to hold the image of Earth rotating on its axis as it revolves around the Sun–which, mind you, is not still but just as busily carries on with its own rotation while whizzing around the center of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy. To understand the business of eclipses, you will have to visualize, in three-dimensional space, how the Moon orbits around Earth, but on a tilted plane relative to Earth’s orbit until it should circle to such a sweet spot as to be aligned with both Mother Earth and Apollo.

You will have to make sense of the fact that, on the day of a solar eclipse, the Moon is actually hanging out in the sky in broad daylight, patiently abiding its time to ambush the sunlight. On August 21, 2017, for example, the Moon works a day shift in the Princeton area, rising at 5:57 am and disappearing off the horizon at 7:52 pm—on a schedule similar to the Sun’s. (May this be called “sunlighting”?)

Last but not least, a crucial piece of information that is mentioned less often is that totality is made possible by a mathematical coincidence of the distance and sizes of the Sun and the Moon. The “tiny” Moon, with a diameter about 1/400 of that of the Sun, is able to briefly block our view of the gigantic fireball, because the latter happens to be about 400 times as far from Earth as the Moon does. (I learned this from a talk given by Dr. Amitava Bhattacharjee, Princeton professor of astrophysical sciences, to a full house of eager listeners in the Princeton Public Library.)

Keeping in mind the complexity of solar eclipses and subsequently the challenge of negotiating simplification and accuracy for a child audience, let’s examine a few titles on astronomy from the Cotsen collection. The purpose is not to evaluate how thoroughly eclipses are explained, but to draw attention to features that add to the interest level and the diversity of ways science can be taught to children. Some of the features still hold fresh, engaging and aesthetic appeals a century or two later, even as all the content of the books don’t necessarily stand the strict test of scientific advancement.

Eclipses Made Easy: The Harmony Between Astronomy and God

Eclipses Made Easy to the Minds and Capacity of the Young was written by the Reverend William Fletcher, who had taught in St John’s College, Cambridge. He was also the author of a grammar book published in 1828. The title, The Little Grammarian, or, an Easy Guide to the Parts of Speech, And Familiar Illustrations of the Leading Rules of Syntax: In a Series of Instructive and Amusing Tales (Cotsen 19946), conveys a similar intention of providing accessible and interesting instructions to children.

Published in April 1836, a month before the upcoming annular eclipse, and already in its second edition, Eclipses Made Easy capitalized on the peaking curiosity of young people in a rare celestial phenomenon to teach astronomy. As a prominent theme throughout the Reverend’s writing, the harmony among the study of astronomy, reason, and faith is emphasized. Fletcher wrote in the beginning paragraph,

I beg to present my juvenile readers with a few such simple observations on Eclipses in general, as may serve not only to inform their minds on the subject, but also lead them in after days to a more intimate knowledge of that sublime science, Astronomy, which has for its primary objects the promotion of the honour and glory of God, and the convenience, comfort, and mental improvement of man. (Fletcher 2)

Later in the book Fletcher (31) would give examples of the “ancient follies and phantoms of superstitious ignorance” in people’s anxious interpretations of eclipses. He even quoted from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, gently disapproving the poet for “subscribing in his immortal verse to the erroneous superstition of the times” (35). Milton’s reference to an ominous solar eclipse is made in lines about Satan’s appearance–“In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds / On half the nations, and with fear of change / Perplexes monarchs”–from Paradise Lost (1667), Book 1, lines 597-599, as quoted by Fletcher (36).

The booklet covers an impressive number of knowledge points important for the understanding of eclipses. The first piece of information Fletcher (5) taught was that Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun! More than two centuries had lapsed after Galileo’s telescopic observations yielded evidence for heliocentrism, but it was still no trivial matter that what he championed was no longer classified as heretical but passed to children by a member of the clergy. Fletcher explained how long it takes the Moon to complete a circle around Earth: “29 days, 12 hours, 42 minutes nearly” (8), which is two minutes shorter than our current consensus. When the Moon is directly between the Sun and Earth, he continued, it could glide over the Sun’s face and thus obscure the latter (9). The book instructs children how to use a lamp placed in a dark room and a round object held in hand for a more experiential understanding of the phenomena (10-13). (Teachers are still using essentially the same experiment to help students visualize celestial movements, as can be seen in “Moon Phases Demonstration,” a video made by the National Science Teachers Association.)

The most spectacular feature of the book is a movable diagram that illustrates the difference among three solar eclipses: total, annular, and partial. By turning a round-shaped card, fastened by a knotted thread to the back of a partially hollowed plate facing the title page, a young reader can see through a peep hole how the three eclipses differ.

The Cotsen copy is a rare one that has the volvelle intact and working. The Harvard University Library has a nicely digitized version of the same title online. Perhaps attesting to the popularity of the movable part, the revolving card in that copy is no longer extant.

The movement of the diagram, interesting as it is, does not really reflect the relative movement of the Sun and the Moon. It can be disorientating, because the diagram presents eclipses as they are viewed from Earth, but it is juxtaposed with a picture of Earth globe viewed from space. Still, the design should receive credit for making astronomy fun and participatory.

Popular Astronomy in Transparent Charts: Gazing at a Sublime Starry Sky

Astronomie Populaire en Tableaux Transparents, or “Popular Astronomy in Transparent Charts,” contains 12 plates of lithographs on thick card, illustrating the solar system, solar phenomena, telescopic appearance of the Moon, the lunar phases, eclipses, the theory of the seasons, comets and aerolites, etc. Two publishers, one in Hall, Württemberg, Germany and the other in Brussels, Belgium, are jointly listed. The set appears to be a French translation of Astronomical Diagrams, published in London around 1851. Cotsen has collected both versions.

I will focus on the French-language edition for a reason that will become transparent. Even though the two language editions seem to carry equivalent texts (distance was converted from miles in English to kilometers in French) and identical visuals, small details in manufacturing let the French version outshine the original English edition. For that same reason, you will want to hold the plates in your hand to fully appreciate the wonder of the design, because there are sensory experiences a digital surrogate is not yet capable of delivering through an electronic screen. (The third edition of the French version has been digitized by the Linda Hall Library in full and made freely accessible online.)

In half of the plates of Astronomie Populaire, the stars, the Sun, the Moon, and other planets are hollowed out or partially so, with colored tissue sheets mounted to the versos of the cards. When you hold up a plate like that against the light, you find yourself suddenly gazing at illuminated celestial bodies. Even the most saturated color splashed on solid paper cannot compete with the amazing glow, which changes intensity like real stars do, as you will no doubt be tempted to play with the position of the plates relative to the light source, trying to achieve the sublime view.

The English edition employs the same design, but the newer, French version has improved its implementation in small details. The French star chart shines more brightly for three reasons. First, the tissue paper used in the French copy is more translucent than that glued to the English plates. Second, the bright yellow sheets used by the French one render vivid glows more easily than the white tissue paper found in the English copy. Lastly, the French copy took pains to punch slightly larger round holes through the stars, letting more light through. Mostly impressively, first magnitude stars received special treatment, with holes punched in the elegant shape of…stars.

For illustrations of eclipses, neither edition employs the design of a hollowed card backed by translucent paper. The English edition contains two errors. First, the Moon’s penumbra is not depicted in the diagram of a solar eclipse. Second, the line that demarcates the illuminated half of the Moon and its dark side should have cut straight across the circle that represents the Moon. It should not be curved. Both are corrected in the French version.

“Aerobic Astronomy” for Chinese Children

If the aforementioned books suggest that the study of astronomy involves endless reading, gazing, and mathematical calculation, then it is time to introduce what I call “aerobic astronomy,” befitting for an increased appreciation of multiple intelligences and diverse learning styles.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses 日食和月食, published in Shanghai in 1958, explains the titular topics to readers at the elementary school level. One of the book’s coauthors, Bian Depei (1926-2001), was a prolific Chinese writer of popular astronomy. A minor planet, 6742 Biandepei, is named after him, honoring the important role he played in establishing the Beijing Planetarium in 1954 and launching Amateur Astronomer magazine in 1958, both the first of their kind in China (Schmadel 532).

Bian introduced a physical exercise to help children visualize the occurrence of eclipses. Three children, each representing the Sun, the Moon, and Earth, are to demonstrate their revolutions. “The Sun” will stand still at the center of a big circle, along which “Earth” will move counterclockwise. Meanwhile, “the Moon” makes a smaller circle, also counterclockwise, around “Earth.” Whenever the three children form one straight line is an occasion for either a solar or a lunar eclipse. I think the game will be more fun and challenging if “the Sun” is also required to move.

What these titles share is palpable excitement about the wonder and beauty of astronomical phenomena, an excitement we relate to on the eve of the 2017 totality. Whether you plan to experience and celebrate the total eclipse visually, or musically, or kinesthetically, or gastrologically, we wish you a cloudless Monday wherever you are.

Ian Dooley and Miriam Jankiewicz contributed to this post.

In the 1680s antiquarian John Aubrey was the first Englishman to mention the observance of April Fool’s Day.  He stated that it was celebrated all over Germany, but folklorists assume that the holiday was imported from France, where seems to have been well-established by the 1650s.  They also speculate that this mock-holiday arose to fill the gap as the tradition of sanctioning all kinds of misrule during the Christmas holiday season waned (think the cruel jokes perpetrated on Shakespeare’s Malvolio during Twelfth Night).   In comparison, April Fool’s was a more civilized occasion for mischief-making, being confined to one day and the only kind of horseplay authorized was to trick others into making public spectacles of themselves.

In the eighteenth-century England, perpetrating hoaxes upon the unwary was ubiquitous on April 1, if we can believe contemporary writers.   Age and class came into play because children were allowed to try and deceive adults and members of a higher class could impose on those of a lower class.  Making an April fool of someone was not below the likes of Jonathan Swift, who in 1713 sat up late with some friends cooking up a prank. A favorite ploy was to convince someone to go on a “sleeveless errand” (aka a wild goose chase) for things that didn’t exist, like pigeon’s milk or the biography of Eve’s mother. .

The first description of an April Fool’s sleeveless errand was described in a notice in the April 2^nd 1698 issue of Dawk’s News-Letter: “Several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch [ the moat around the Tower] to see the Lions washed.”   One of the city’s great tourist destinations, visitors since the reign of Elizabeth I went the royal menagerie to gawk  at caged lions, tigers, bears, elephants, etc.  The lions were kept in the barbican called the Bulwark, which eventually was renamed the Lion Tower.  The fast-talking trickster would try to persuade a gullible victim that every year on April 1 the lions were taken down to the moat for a bath.  All someone had to do to enjoy the spectacle was enter by the White Gate.  Of course, there was no such gate or any wet lions…  In the nineteenth century, the merry sometimes distributed fake admission tickets and one is shown above.

In honor of the day, here are two accounts of washing the lions from two eighteenth-century children’s books, which may be unknown in the literature on the holiday.   Cotsen has copies of both, but to give readers an idea of the look-and-feel of children’s books during the period, the facsimiles are reproduced from the British Library copies on Eighteenth-Century Collections On-Line.  The first account comes from the last chapter of Travels of Tom Thumb Over England and Wales (1746), where the intrepid little narrator confesses to being taken in by the story about the lions’ annual grooming ritual.  He also mentions that the most common visitors to the Tower lions are pregnant women, who wanted to know the sex of their babies!

The second, longer description of washing the Tower lions comes from chapter 8 of Richard Johnson’s The Picture Exhibition (1783).  The narrator is a school boy, describing  a picture he drew of an April Fool’s prank in progress.  He clearly disapproves of the incident and there is something unpleasant about the watermen’s gratuitous cruelty towards the poor country bumpkin.  While the tone of the narrator’s lecture about appropriate behaviour is too prosy for modern tastes, he was expressing quite enlightened views at a time when blood sports were tolerated and jokes based on highly offensive gender and class stereotypes perfectly acceptable.

 P.S.  Princeton has a pride of lions to wash, if anyone on campus wants to revive the tradition…