A copybook is a book used in education that contains examples and blank space for writing down copies of the examples by imitation

Imitation

Imitation is an advanced behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's. The word can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to international politics.-Anthropology and social sciences:...

. Typical uses include teaching penmanship

Penmanship

Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called hands, whilst an individual personal style of penmanship is referred to as handwriting....

 and arithmetic

Arithmetic

Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...

 to students. A page of a copy book typically starts with a copybook heading: a printed example of what should be copied, such as a single letter

Letter (alphabet)

A letter is a grapheme in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone in the spoken form of the language....

 or a short proverb

Proverb

A proverb is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim...

. The rest of the page is empty, except for horizontal rulings. The student is expected to copy the example down the page. By copying, the student is supposed to practice penmanship, spelling

Spelling

Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...

, reading comprehension

Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is defined as the level of understanding of a text. This understanding comes from the interaction between the words that are written and how they trigger knowledge outside the text. ....

, punctuation

Punctuation

Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...

, and vocabulary

Vocabulary

A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...

.

History

The American Instructor: Or, Young Man's Best Companion, published in 1748, was the first American copybook. The 1802 book The Port folio recommends the copybook method of learning fine penmanship over the previously used method of "engraved models", citing the advantage of having the example text closer to the student's reproduction. The author adds, "A neat copybook has often laid the foundation, or shown the first symptoms, of taste in all the elegant arts of life."

Copybooks are still available for purchase today, but unlike older copybooks many modern ones use print and cursive fonts as the writing examples instead of real handwriting.

Uses

Because in the 18th Century good penmanship was primarily considered an important business skill, the copybooks frequently were oriented towards autodidacts wishing to learn business skills, and therefore included chapters on general business management as well as lessons in accounting. Other copybooks, however, focussed chiefly on writing literacy and used maxim

Maxim (philosophy)

A maxim is a ground rule or subjective principle of action; in that sense, a maxim is a thought that can motivate individuals.- Deontological ethics :...

s and sometimes Bible verses as their material. It was intended that students memorize not only correct penmanship, but correct morals as well, through exposure to traditional sayings.

Copybooks were also published in geography, the student being asked to copy first names onto an unlabelled map, and later whole maps onto a latitude/longitude grid.

In popular culture

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 published a poem called The Gods of the Copybook Headings

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

The Gods of the Copybook Headings is a poem published by Rudyard Kipling in 1919 that foresaw the decline of his country's empire and attributed it to a loss of the old virtues, and to a general complacency entailing that "all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins"...

in October 1919, a lesson to keep to common sense.