Words of Wisdom on Wisdom!

[Tony Summerfield]

Alan Wisdom was a pupil at Enid Blyton's School at Southernhay and whilst I was looking for something else, I came across one of Enid's reports on him and thought that perhaps someone might like to see it. It should really be in the Archives in the Secret Passage, but as that part of the website is not under my control I thought I would put it here instead.



Slight water damage, and it may be a bit small, but I hope it is still readable. I shouldn't think that there are many Enid Blyton reports from 1923 around!

[Ming]

That's a very interesting piece of memorabilia, Tony. I can't quite make out the subject just under "Scripture"?

The variety of subjects Enid taught are fascinating. Wow. I wonder where Alan Wisdom is now?

[Tony Summerfield]

French is under Scripture, Ming. I also have Marjorie Wisdom's report, but she had a slightly smaller range of subjects as she was only aged 5!

[Anita Bensoussane]

A lovely item. Thanks, Tony! I like the description of Alan's character under "General Remark." I wonder why there were so many absences that term? Was it perhaps due to a contagious illness like measles, caught by a number of members of the class?

Anita

[tix]

Those old manuscripts and papers that Tony finds are invariably interesting because of their relationship to Enid Blyton but in this case I’ve probably missed or completely forgotten something. Is Alan Wisdom famous apart from being an ex-pupil? The Fans who have added to this thread seem to know him but I can’t recall the name. When I tried “Search This Topic” I just got the same entries so I googled and found that “Alan Wisdom has served since October 1994 as Vice President of the Institute on Religion & Democracy.” Is that the right person and is “Marjorie” his wife?

[Lucky Star]

A lovely piece and perfectly legible after all these years. Its certainly unique, many thanks for sharing that with us Tony. I also wonder where Alan Wisdom is today. Mind you I calculate that he would be 94 or 95 years old so its very possible that he too is no longer with us. I hope he had a successful life, he certainly had a good teacher to start him off.

[hope189]

Very interesting indeed, Tony. It was quite a thrill to read something written in Enid's handwriting.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I googled and found that “Alan Wisdom has served since October 1994 as Vice President of the Institute on Religion & Democracy.” Is that the right person and is “Marjorie” his wife?

As Lucky Star said, the Alan Wisdom for whom Enid wrote a report must be pretty elderly by now if he's still living. Since Marjorie attended Southernhay with him in the early 1920s, I imagine she was his younger sister. It would be interesting to see her report too.

Anita

[Laura]

Very interesting reading. It's an impressive list of subjects for an eight year old, although suppose that that was the norm back then. We certainly didn't start learning things like history, geography and French until we were ten!

[Julie2owlsdene]

What a lovely treasure this is from 1923, it's amazing it's survived the years.

Reading down the list was the word 'tables'. I wonder if children these days still learn their tables and recite them in the way we used to.

I couldn't make out the subject that was below 'singing and above 'nature'?

That's for posting it Tony.

[Ming]

Julie, the subject is "Modelling". I wonder if it meant making models of things with clay or dough? Any idea what they made, anyone?

[Tony Summerfield]

Alan's sister, Marjorie, was a bit younger than him so she got a slightly simpler range of subjects.

[Ming]

That too was an interesting report. What does the "N.F.U" stand for after Enid's name?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Enid had N.F.U. after her name because she'd passed the teaching exams set by the National Froebel Union. The teaching course she had followed in Ipswich incorporated much of the educational philosophy of Friedrich Froebel:

http://www.froebelweb.org/web2005.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Volume three of The Teacher's Treasury (1926) contains some information on modelling. Although Enid Blyton edited the treasury and wrote a lot of material for it, the pages on modelling come in a section on "Handwork" written by the Misses R.K. and M. I. R. Polkinghorne and include information on modelling with clay, wet sand, paper-pulp (papier-mache), a flour and salt mixture (for making things like valleys and mountain ranges), plasticene, play-wax, glitter-wax, paper and cardboard. The waxes are said to be expensive, as are sticks of plasticene - "...their price makes it impossible to have an adequate supply for a large class." Suggestions for models are included, e.g. animals, fruit, flowers, shells, buildings, dolls' furniture, pots, bowls and 3-D shapes like cubes and spheres.

Thanks for posting Marjorie's report, Tony.

Anita

[Julie2owlsdene]

Another lovely report. 1922 this time. It's even got the phone number on. I see Enid has signed her famous signature, I wonder why as a teacher she didn't sign Miss E Blyton.