School-children the World Over; with Stories and Descriptions

New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1909. 1st ed. Hardcover. Near Fine. photos. 78, [1]p. Original cloth with smaller image of one of the photos mounted on center of decorated front cover. 26 cm. Narrow gaps visible between a few leaves. No jacket. Photographic images from Underwood & Underwood stereographic images. The general arrangement, with a couple of exceptions, is text on the lefthand page about the photo on the facing righthand page. Our first reaction was positive -- nice photos of children the world ove in school or going there. Then we noticed th the text, written by Lucy Leffingwell Cable (listed as Lucy Dunton in the book), seemed tainted (truncated) by white racism and stereotyping typical of the period. Three examples: (1) Here is the first paragraph of the text on page 18 about a photo of Children of Central Africa: "These faces are none of them very bright or attractive, are they? Well, possibly a few of these boys and girls are rather brighter than they look, and many of them are learning in this mission school, to become at least a little less attractive than they were"; (2) poor children at La Parouse in Australia are decribed, in part: " These boys and girls belong to poorer families, and a few of them are full-blooded Australians. They are an ill-kept unattractive crowd, aren't they?"; and (3) the text accompanying a photograph of Jamaican school children is captioned: "Jamaican pickannines going to school. (Inventory #: 94507)