Friday Library Snapshot …

I am a fool for Alphabet books I have a small collection. They never cease to amaze me.  I am compiling one of my own and it is surprisingly difficult; especially if one wants to keep to a theme.

When I found this one in the Reading Room to be returned to the archive store; I laughed out loud. This is  outrageous behaviour is not encouraged,  so I had to stifle my giggles until later when I was alone.  

Bertrand Russell believed that this book supplies a ‘lacuna’ which has long disgraced our education system’ he  recommends it  should be experienced in the ‘earlier stages of the pedagogical process’ as an ABC; it is the gateway to all wisdom and should be ‘adopted in scholastic institutions’

He say also of those who have read it, some have thought it wise, some foolish,  others subversive … but all  have gone on to have an ‘impeccable knowledge of the alphabet’.

… for me I am glad to hear that ‘nincompoop’ is a real word!

The good citizen’s alphabet by Bertrand Russell drawings by Franciszka Themerson 1989