SINGAPORE -- Last night at the National Museum, a hitherto unknown book was unearthed through serendipity by Teo Xinyin, a primary six student from Ming Qiao Primary School. Xinyin was on a National Education trip organised by the school to view the exhibits relating to ``Our History---Past, Present and Future''. One part of the exhibit included an archaeological dig site that was near the National Museum.
Curator Dr Tan Chin Leong revealed that the archaeological site for the exhibition was an on-going expedition undertaken by the Museum, and had opened up some slots for students on their National Education trips to take part in, supervised.
``The book that Xinyin found is quite interesting because we were not expecting such a bound tome to be found in Singapore during the late nineteenth century,'' Dr Tan had opined about the find. ``We believe that this may be evidence of some early book trade with the West even before Western literacy was a thing on the island-nation.''
When asked about her thoughts about the find, Xinyin told this reporter that she was not expecting to make an actual find, let alone a ground-breaking one at the dig. She had also mentioned that she enjoyed the experience a lot and is considering to be an archaelogist when she grows up.
The book in question is a nineteenth century edition of a grammar book written by the highly influential but obscure grammarian Ernest Blofeld. According to Dr Tan, there were few works of Blofeld in the world, but each had proven to be seminal in the study of the English language.
The book will be presented to the public in a special exhibit at the National Museum in a year's time after suitable restoration works have been done on it.
--MT
(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 02-Feb-2014 19:54:17)
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