DUMAS (Louis). The Library of the Children or the First Elements of the Letters. Containing the System of the Typographical Office. For the use of Monseigneur le Dauphin and of Messeigneurs les Enfans de France. Et dixi A, a, a, Domine Deus : ecce nescio loqui, quia puer ego sum. Jerem. cap. I. v. 6. At Pierre Simon, Printer of the Parliament, rue de la Harpe à l'Hercule. In Paris. 1732. With privilege of the King. In-4 (26 x 19.5 cm). XIX, (5), 96 pp. full tan calf, spine decorated with five nerves, red morocco title-piece, roulette on the edges, red edges (Binding of the period). First edition. Progressive method for the use of his typographic desk by Louis Dumas (Nîmes 1676-1744). The Bureau typographique, a piece of furniture reminiscent of the typographic cassettes, contained nearly ten thousand cards of letters, numbers and punctuation marks written with a stencil. It allowed the child to grasp the figure of the letters and a multitude of learning exercises, facilitating his progress in Latin and French. Dumas' pedagogical innovation was reserved for the nobility and private institutions. La Bibliothèque des Enfans was designed for the Dauphin, Louis Ferdinand (1729-1765), eldest son of Louis XV, and the royal children. This first edition contains only the second volume, with three Latin ABCs, fifty lessons for the teacher and the child. The first Latin ABC is devoted to the letters, the second to the combinations and the third to the Latin monosyllables, to the formation of sounds and letters, to the numerical ABC and to reading pieces in Latin and Old Latin. A large-margin quarto copy offered by the author to the first physician of Monseigneur le Dauphin, Monsieur Bouillac. Rare present copy, well preserved, except for a few stains on the first cover. Five double pages must have contained flower stems which have left some small traces.