You know by now that early penmanship notebooks are one of my very favorite things, and having looked at many many at this point it takes special and unusual ones to excite me, which is the case with this one. The work of a Daniel Zigler, dated 1847, it features phrases I have not seen in one of these before, repeated many many times (not just one page's worth, but multiple pages of the same phrase.) And fun ones! "Many men of many minds, many birds of different kinds,"; God made man and man made money, God made bees, and bees made honey" (and with that "bees" often, in Daniel's hand, looking more like "beer"!); "A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds"; "Plough deep while lazy boys sleep and you shall have corn to sell and much to eat"; "Rest continued long makes idleness grow strong"; "Beware of the geese when the fox preaches.," etc. Me thinks his teacher had a penchant for rhymes!
I can't find a location written on it (though Daniel signed and dated most pages) but I would guess (including for the many farming related references) it was a country school he was attending, with the "long s" still showing up (in idleness for example), after it had largely gone out of fashion, and the teacher, who would write the first line on the page as example, making a few mistakes of their own (as in deride note infirmities not triumph over injuries.) Anyway, sometimes I love these notebooks for the beauty of the handwriting, but even more so I love them as portraits of time and place and the person who kept them. And look closely, he's inserted the phrase "God is good" a few times amidst the endless field of "Man made money"s!
7 3/8" x 6 3/8", 16 pages, all full (32 pp.) Good condition, no covers, string binding, holding all pages together. Some ink stains, original to it I believe, and general wear. Ink strong and readable throughout
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