Who Invented the Dunce Cap? (And other unusual School Supplies)

I actually need you to know that the glue that kids use in schools, it's it's not really glue at all. What do you mean by that? It's a misnomer. And when I say misnomer to the kids, they looked at me puzzled. But they need to know what the word misnomer means as well. But true glue is derived from natural materials like animal byproducts, plant resins, and since school glue like Elmer's, is actually made from synthetic materials, that technically makes it an adhesive. This is this is a

very important point. I love the idea of you just like stomping around second grade classrooms yelling stop putting that adhesive in your mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you you know how much I traveled these days, and so I try to make it a point by stopping by at least two or three classrooms to make this point. I mean, nearly every example prior to twentieth century was all natural, like tree sap, beeswax, egg whites, animal blood.

In fact, the very first commercial glue company in the UK made their glue from fish by products from sturgeons to be specific. Can you imagine what they smell like? So I actually remember Salvador Dolly made this homemade cologne for his wife and it was out of like glue and fish parts. But you know, if he'd use that UK glue instead, like he could have saved himself. It's kind of like a glue life hack. Yeah, totally is.

And what it felt so good to like peel it off your neck and I think I'm gonna go another round here. But it wasn't just in the UK, like fish glue was the norm in the US two and at least until Elmer's Glue all hit the market in the late nineteen forties. Now, at that time, the Elmer's brand also used natural ingredients in the glue, but the kind of used were far less smelly than the surgeon.

So Elmer's Glue all was originally produced by the Boarding Company, which you know is in the dairy business, and one of the main ingredients in the early form of the glue was case in, which you probably knows this protein found in dairy milk and something the Boarding company obviously had a lot of. That's pretty interesting. So are there any advantages to use in case in over something like

fish parts. Definitely, the improved smell, not surprisingly, but case and glue also spread more easily at dried clear much easier to wash out. So if you think about, you know, kids using it, that was really important. But despite all of these improvements, for some reason, they're packaging left much

to be desired. Like the glue was originally sold in this glass bottle, which you know, it was getting broken all the time with kids handling, and it came with this separate wooden apple hater that was attached to the side of the bottle was just a rubber band, and so it was frequently going missing. And so when school kids across the country started investing in the stuff, that's when Borden decided to wise up and they now you know,

adopted this. This is what we think of is this very classic white plastic bottle and has the orange dispenser tip on the top. So you know me and you know I love glue knowledge. But what is it that made you want to talk about glue today? Yeah, you really are some kind of an expert on this. But I wanted to talk about school back in September. But as everybody knows, we've all been a bit busy around here.

But since our kids are firmly back in school, no vacation in sight, I thought it'd be fun to explore some of the weird origin stories behind school supplies and a few other things you might find in the classroom. So it's time to bust out your protractor. Lock in that retainer because class is back in session, right he their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer on the other side of that soundproof glass,

jotting down some notes in his Lisa Frank notebook. I'm so jealous of this. Our friend and producer Loll Berlante check it out mega like it's it's just the smiling panda riding on top of a smiling dolphin, and they're both eating these rainbow colored ice cream cones, which also seems to somehow be smiling. Well finds the best stuff. It's incredible, And now I'm smiling. But you know, I am glad that you kicked this off talking about glue, because it makes it less weird that now I want

to talk about backpacks. So these days, the first backpack that most people are is a school backpack, but that hasn't always been the case. So prior to the mid twentieth century, most American students either carried their books to class by hand, or else they wrapped a leather belt or cloth strap around the books and then kind of

slung that over their shoulder. And a few students did use small briefcase style satchels to carry their stuff to class, but for the most part, students really went backless and stuck with these trusty book straps instead. It's so weird to think about a world without backpacks, like, especially since you're saying it wasn't all that long ago. I mean, no one really thought about wearing a bag on your

bag before the twentieth century, I don't really understand that. So, I mean, ruck sacks were I guess a thing before that, and they were basically the draw string bags that you

sling over your shoulder. But these zipper bags with dual straps like that didn't come along until And that was the year when a mountaineer named Jerry Cunningham invented the first ever zipper backpack out of canvas cloth and mostly you did this because he didn't like the way traditional ruck sacks slid around on his back when he was climbing. So Jerry's design was a big hit with hikers and

campers and and people like that, real outdoorsman. But actually it would take another thirty years before his invention would finally make its way off the trail and into the classroom. Again, I mean, it's hard to believe it would take this long to realize that there was a market for these beyond just mountaineers. So was it Jerry's idea to bring it into the classroom as well? No, not exactly. I mean,

he did keep playing with his backpack. He made the first nylon backpack in seven and his designs were mostly for outdoor living, but it's actually that company Jan Sport. Did you have a Janspoort growing up? Oh, totally, that's multiple despite the like lifetime guarantee. I think I probably had three different jans you know, we had between JanSport and LB, and I had so many backpacks and they all had like life lifetime guarantees, and I went to

all of them. So he designed this tear drop design and Jan Sport tweaked it a little and they used it to win over students. But that even makes it

sound like a little more intentional than it was. So the University of Washington had this small sports shop inside their campus bookstore because so many kids in the area were into climbing and hiking or whatever, and so in nineteen sixty nine, the shop began stalking jam sports new lightweight nylon backpack, mainly as used as like a day pack for these hikes, and when students realized the bags were perfect for keeping books and supplies, and it really

took off. It's funny because a pretty similar thing happened with lunch boxes, which was another surprisingly recent addition to the school's supply cannon, which is I guess people didn't want their sandwiches wet for lunch, No, I don't. I

don't know if you want your sandwiches weather. That is, kids were mostly just improvising, you know, through the mid twentieth century or so, they'd use an old cookie tin or tobacco tin they had long around somewhere, and so it wasn't until the late nineteenth century that dedicated lunch pails finally arrived on the scene. I always think that word lunch pails is so funny, like the idea of carrying around a bucket full of food. I mean, they

kind of were. I mean, the original lunch pails for these small metal buckets, except they did come with lids, and later versions took on more of a a toolbox or bread basket shape, and they feature these clasps so you could keep the lid shut when you carry them around, which is the kind of lunch box men took to work in the early twentieth century. You can kind of visualize those images we've seen, and pretty soon their children

followed suit. At cool, So when did these bright colors and the cartoon characters, Like when did all that stuff get onto the lunch boxes? That actually happened pretty early, like The first one aim specifically at kids came in nineteen thirty five when the Aladdin Company put a picture of Mickey Mouse on the front, but with the depression,

it didn't quite take off at that time. Yeah, I'm guessing funds for that sort of thing where a little limited and you know, food set of premium, not you know, not the things you're carrying it around in. Yeah, no, that's true. But you know, the Aladdin Company kept their idea for this novelty lunch box in their back pocket, and when TV started to take off, this was in the early nineteen fifties, the company got another turn at this, and so they released the metal Lunchbox and thermis that

featured a cruelly drawn picture of hop Along Cassidy. Well that might sound pretty dull today, the hop Along lunch Box was actually a massive hit. They sold six hundred thousand of these things in a single year, and that success was enough for another screen cowboy to take notice. This was, of course, Roy Rogers, so he approached the Latin about making a lunch box of his own, but the company actually turned him away because they didn't think

a second cowboy lunchbox would sell. It's just there's too it's too much cowboy. You don't want two cowboys. I'm guessing they were wrong about that, though, right, they were very wrong about this because remember westerns were a big deal in fifties entertainment, on the same scale as like the superhero movies today, and there was absolutely room on the shelf for two cowboy lunchboxes. And Roy Rogers knew this.

So to that end, Rogers partnered with a different company, it was American Thermis, and then together they released the lunch box that was so popular and wound up selling two and a half million units in nineteen fifty three. Not only did Roy Rogers you know, this lunch box sell through the roof, it also set a new benchmark for lunchbox design. It had this full color illustration that covered the entire box, and Thermis and so from their

lunch boxes really took off. Companies started churning out countless designs with TV movie, comic book characters. The biggest hit was this Disney lunch box painted to resemble a school bus that was carrying Mickey and the other Disney characters along like Pinocchio and Dumbo, and so over nine million of those school lunch boxes were sold, making it the most popular lunchbox ever made. That's pretty incredible. So we're lunch boxes still mostly metal at that point, where had

they already switched over to plastic. Now, these were all still metal, And when all was said and done, roughly a hundred and twenty million metal lunch boxes were sold between nineteen fifty in nineteen seventy. The party kind of ended in nineteen seventy two, though, when the State of

Florida banded metal lunchbox is from schools. They were, you know, worried that kids were using these heavy boxes as weapons, which led to the plastic boxes that we've seen in more recent years than the eventual declining sales of of lunch boxes in general. So we've covered two of the most quintessential school supplies I feel, like backpacks and lunch boxes. But here's another thing I hadn't thought about in a while, and that's the humble plastic recorder, which is still used

in music classes today. You know, I have always wondered, like, how has decided that every kid in America should learn how to play the recorder? Like I've always just assumed someone on the school board was in cahoots with the manufacturer, and that's how it somehow took off. Yeah, so I was actually curious about that too, And it turns out that it's largely thanks to the influence of this famous German composer whose music theory became the basis for a

lot of the school music programs we see today. His name was Carl Orff, and while his name might not ring a bell, you've definitely heard his most famous work, and at least one movie trailer. It's called Carmina Burana and it sounds like this. Yeah, that definitely rings a bell. I mean, it's kind of the go to hook for every epic movie since the exactly. But anyway, so Orp's approach to teaching music stress the importance of rhythm and

creative thinking rather than just memorizing musical notations. And he thought the best way for a kid to learn music was by teaching him to play a simple, accessible instrument that kind of mimic their own vocal range. And the soprano recorder perfectly fit that bill, because you know, at its core, the recorder is practically just a whistle, and unlike more complicated instruments, there are no strings to strong You don't have to purse your lips in any strange way.

You just kind of blow and outcomes this screechy, high pitched tone. At least that's what I hear from my kids. But if you cover this whole or that hole with your fingers, you can actually change the notes you play. But the recorders classroom dominance wasn't cemented until the nineteen sixties, and that's when advances in manufacturing finally allowed the instruments

to be mass produced in plastic. The plastic recorders were especially attractive to educators because they were cheap enough that you could buy them in bulk, but still durable enough that you know they'd last, and they had a pretty good sound. I do have to say, I mean, you're being pretty cavalier about potentially alienating all those professional recorder players that might be in our audience. I think it

should be a little bit more careful. I think you're right, actually, And Gabe, who did this research, warned me that recorders used to be considered a pretty serious instrument. According to experts, the recorders heyday was probably during the Baroque era, when composers like Bach and Vivaldi would actually crank out pieces that showcased recorders and all different sizes, and the recorder kind of got off staged when the flute came into

Europe and Asia and gradually stole the show. But adult musicians do still compose four and play the recorder today. According to Susan Burns, who's the administrative director of the American Recorder Society, quote, the recorder is a professional instrument in its own right. Everyone says, oh, it's so easy to play, but it takes a lifetime to master. Yeah,

it's funny. I don't know if you've ever seen this, this clip that went viral of you hear the song turned down for what being played, and then right after they say that, it pans to this group of elementary school students and they start playing the like chorus or whatever on their recorders. It it was pretty great. I know, we've got so much more. So let's take a quick break. They're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about

the strange stories behind school supplies. All right, mango, So, as you know, there's a question every parent has to ask sooner or later, and that is, how can I keep my kid from freaking out about their first day of school. Like, it's a scary amount of change for a child to deal with, and there's no universal answer for how to combat that fear. But the Germans and Austrians have what's probably the closest thing I think and what is up. Well, basically you distract them with a

giant cone full of present. I mean, it seems so obvious in hindsight, but this is a real thing in Germany and Austria. So each year since the early eight hundred's, the latest crop of first graders are gifted with what's called a school to to, which is to help celebrate their very first day of school. The name translates as school bag, but it's more like this giant cone shaped

Christmas stocking. So parents will fashion it out of paper and it's sometimes as big as two or three feet tall, and then they fill it with like candy and toys and all these other treats to help make the first day of school more special. Actually, just look this up. It's crazy. These cones are like as big as the kids. It's insane. There is all the first year students just lugged these giant cones around like all day. Well not anymore now, I mean, nowadays, most kids get their sholta,

does it at home and and leave it there. But back in the early days of the tradition, kids actually had to rush to the schoolyard and pick their own from this tree that was set to grow them only when it was time for the school year to start. I say, that's amazing. I can imagine kids just like waiting like at the gates and then running in and

getting these plucking these cones from trews. It is kind of funny that you brought up cones, because I actually have the goods on a different sort of cone that was supposed to I guess bring up the opposite reaction, and that's the dunce cap. So during the Victorian era, this goofy cone shaped hat became a symbolic form of discipline and European and American schools alike, and if a student acted up in class or didn't know the answer to a question, they'd have to go sit in the corner.

And I'm sure you're seeing cartoons of like Dennis the Menace or whatever where he's wearing a dunce cap sitting in the corner. But the hope was all this embarrassment with curtail future misbehaved year. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing like a little public shaming to keep the kids in line. You know. Well, it must have been pretty traumatizing for the kids. But the practice actually continued in the US and Europe well into the twentieth century, and Dunce caps

were pretty common all the way up until the nineteen fifties. Oh. I do think of it as like a much older image. I didn't realize they lasted that long. Yeah. So here's the wildest part and something I hadn't heard before this week. But we think about the Dunce cap as something that signifies like a lack of intelligence, and it actually began as a symbol of a really accomplished scholar. Born sometime in the thirteenth century. His name was John Dunn Scotus,

and he was a Franciscan priest and a linguist. He studied theology and philosophy at Oxford and taught classes at the University of Paris. And he even had a group of students and others that kind of followed his teachings and and lived near him, and they called themselves duncemen. So Atlas Obscure has an article about it, and it says, quote, Scotus was a renaissance man centuries before the Renaissance even

took place. But all of that said, it should be known that Scotis liked to wear a big, pointy wizard hat whenever he went out in public. So while he was this incredibly smart guy, his sense of fashion might be a little lacking or a little too forward, you know, depending on how you how you look at it. But the cool thing is, and no one is really sure whether Scotis was inspired by depictions of wizards that he'd seen, or whether it was his own cap that inspired the

wizard's look that that we think of now. I think in either case, it sounds like the takeaway here is that wise people wear very pointy hats. I think that's the only thing I could take from Oh but you know, Scotis even went a step further. He actually believed that the conical shape of his hat kind of functioned as this metaphysical reverse funnel, with knowledge collecting at the pointy

end and then flowing down around his brain. And and so as silly as it sounds, the idea caught on with academics of the day, and and the cone shaped cat became the symbol of both duntsmen and of high intelligence in general. A sort of bizarre So like what happened? Like what changed the hats from a mark of pride to this symbol of shame? I guess, funnily enough, it's

actually the Renaissance that changed it. So by the mid sixteenth century, popular theology and philosophy had moved away from Scotus and his teachings, and that lack of popular favor made the remaining Dunsmen look silly and kind of outdated. Plus their pointy hats didn't help, so over time, the dunceman and the dunce cap kind of became the symbol

of foolishness and stupidity. Such a strange legacy. On the bright side, though, historians have kind of vindicated Scotus over the years, and he's not held up as one of the finest thinkers of the Middle Ages, and Pope John Paul the second even beautified him back in for his work as a religious scholar. So who knows, maybe we can turn things around for this famous cap too. Anyway, We've got more to come, but first, a quick break

welcome back to part time genius. So will you've probably heard by now that sitting is the new smoking when it comes to health concerns, and that's why so many offices these days are switching the standing desk for their workers.

But you know, despite all the studies touting the health benefits of standing over sitting, it's unusual to find standing desks in elementary schools, which I mean, that's a good point because it is kind of weird when you think about I mean us whom all the benefits of standing desk apply just as well as students as they would to adult office workers. Yeah, I mean, you're exactly right.

So there was this study that came out last year and it found that third graders who used a standing desk at school were more focused in the classroom and more active overall compared to kids of the same age he used traditional sit down desks. And another study came up with the same results for second through fourth graders, setting a twelve percent increase and engagement from students who

had the option of standing in class. I mean, it does sound like things might change in the not too distant future, and maybe we'll see standing desks become more of the norm in these classrooms. Yeah, so, a handful of elementary schools across the country have already started adding standing desk to the classrooms, and I'm guessing more and more schools will jump on the trend as they become

more affordable. But in the meantime, one elementary school teacher in California, Lynn Acres, has already made the switch to standing desks, and she explained the benefits this way. Quote, children naturally learned through movement. If you restrict them to sitting, they interrupt you more and maybe asked to go to the bathroom a lot. They need to get their energy out, which makes sense. But you know, on the other hand, restricting kids this standing all day long could also lead

to just as many problems. I mean, what if they get tired. Yeah, so schools are actually using a mix of standing and sitting desks, which lets the kids choose the option what works best for them. And even at schools where there are only standing desks, they tend to provide kids with these tall chairs or stools so that just in case they're tired, they can rest their legs. It's definitely a smart move. And you know, since you

mentioned how kids need an outlet for their energy. I do want to touch on something that's kind of become really a controversial topic. Are you talking about recess? I am definitely talking about recess. You know, we have to talk about recess. But instead of talking about how some schools have tried to abolish recess, which maybe was where you were thinking, I actually wanted to look at how we can make recess an even more effective form of

exercise than it already is. So, according to researchers in Denmark, the perfect place to start is with our schools playgrounds. In two thousand fifteen, Danis researchers conducted a study where they had hundreds of elementary students where accelerometers and these GPS trackers during their school year so that their activity levels at recess could actually be monitored. But here's the thing.

The kids didn't all attend the same school or have recess on the same playground, and this variance allowed the researchers to see which types of schoolyard are more or less conducive to exercise, and so, based on the data from these accelerometers, the children in the study were significantly more active when playing on grassy areas and it sites featuring playground equipment, and on the other end of the spectrum, concrete lots were the worst of the bunch, so they

elicited the least energy expenditure of all the environment studied. So the hope is that with this kind of insight on what works best, developers can make better decisions and create playgrounds and school yards where you know, it's easier and more fun for kids to choose to be active on their own. Which is interesting. So what kinds of stuff are we talking about though, like, because I'm guessing it's something beyond your typical slides and monkey bars. Yeah,

that's right. So that the researchers behind this study helped a few different schools renovate their playgrounds and the main focus was to widen the variety of activities on offer. So in addition to the standard playground fair like swing sets, they added these areas specifically designed for dancing and climbing and skating, and they even dedicated this trampoline area. And I mean, really, who wouldn't want to spend at least an hour a day in a place like that all

those options? I know, it does sound pretty fun and in the end. Isn't that the only school supply that a kid really needs? Fun? Pens, pencils, notebooks, rulers, there's probably a few other things. Yeah, it's like a true grown up. So why don't we keep the fun going with a fact off? H So here's a quick one on crayons. According to a Yale University study, Crayola crayons are one of the most recognizable sense for adults, ranking at number eighteen of all the sense they tried, and

it beat out Believe this or not, cheese and bleach. Wow, that's impressive. All right, Well, speaking of names for crayons, did you know that Krayola uses multiple names to refer to the same colors. So the practice started early, with the company using fifty four names to refer to just thirty eight separate colors by the end of nineteen oh three,

and things only balloon from there. So you fast forward to two thousand fifteen and Crayola had to signed seven hundred and fifty nine names to just three hundred and

thirty one colors. Now, to be clear, though, this doesn't mean the company is stuffing duplicate crayons and the same box under a different name, but if you were to open different boxes, you might actually find that the same blue crayon is simultaneously labeled as Liberty blue, iron Man blue, or Birdie blue, depending on the box that you get. So pencils may seem a little old fashioned as more kids learned to type and use pens, but don't count

them out just yet. According to the Chicago Tribune, they keep coming back into fashion every so often, and when Sudoku first became a craze, pencils actually had a seven percent increase in sales in London. Holy cow. All right, well, here's a quick one. I didn't realize until our friend

Aaron McCarthy did the story on trapper keepers. So apparently the unique folders were called trappers because they kept papers in them so well, and then the binder was called a trapper keeper because it held all the trappers to get there. You know, I had always wondered why it had that name. It is such a strange name for a product that I absolutely love. So you gave us the skinny on Elmer's glue at the top of the show. So now I'm actually going to clue you in on

Elmer himself, because I believe it or not. Elmer wasn't created just for the glue bottle. He was actually based on a real bull that the Board and Company used

to advertise its products at the World's Fair. So the original plan was to have the dairy company's famous spokes cow Elsie, appear at the event, but she was actually busy shooting the film version of Little Women or or the sequel I guess Little Men bizarre, but she was on set, so Boorden knew they couldn't show up to the World's Fair empty handed, so at the last minute, the company found a bull to use instead, and at the fair, the company dubbed him Elmer and announced that

he was the unmentioned husband of Elsie, which I'm sure Elsie wasn't too happy about it, but the public loved the idea, and Elmer was quickly made the mascot for the Board and Chemical division, you know, the other side of the company, And that's how we wound up on

the glue that would eventually bear his name. That was a a much more involved origin story than I expected for the for the fact off especially, but I do like the way you brought the episode full circle, So just for that, I think I'm gonna give you the trophy. I will take it all right. Well, that's gonna do it. For today's Part Time Genius for myself, Mango, Gabe, and Lowell. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode. Part Time Genius is a production of I

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