PREFACE THIS book, it is hoped, will serve the same purpose in introducing the study of arithmetic that the Primer long has done in teaching the beginnings of reading. It provides an abundance of simple, carefully graded, and interesting material for teaching the elementary processes in number, in accordance with the practice prevailing in the better schools. A child's attainments in number work should not be measured merely by his power to manipulate abstract figures. In fact, early skill in juggling numbers without adequate concepts back of them may seriously impede a child's future progress in arithmetic. Yet because of the failure of primary text-books in arithmetic to heed this commonly accepted principle in psychology, children are often plunged, at the very outset, into the formal study of number. Only the abler pupils survive this rigorous treatment; in most of our Elementary schools there are many "retarded" pupils who have failed to be promoted because "they could not keep up in arithmetic." Many of these failures could have been averted had a good foundation been laid at the beginning of their study of number. In order to insure such a foundation, the work in this book is based upon the familiar experiences and activities of childhood, and follows as closely as possible the child's own method of acquiring new knowledge and skill. Each topic is developed concretely in connection with some interest of children; the new facts are then established through games and exercises; and, finally, power and independence in the use of number facts are acquired through a variety of applications to common situations in the lives of children. Every step is made as interesting as possible, but no time is wasted in mere entertainment. There is definite progress from day to day in the understanding of number facts and in the mastery of the simple number combinations and processes. The authors take pleasure in acknowledging their indebtedness to Mr. J. A. Pitman, Principal of the State Normal School at Salem, Massachusetts, for his encouragement in this work; to Miss Jones and Miss Carpenter of the Salem Practice School for several contributions in the work with games and for their coöperation in working out and testing the principles at the basis of the book; and to Mr. George W. Evans, Headmaster of the Charlestown (Mass.) High School, formerly Head of the Department of Mathematics in the English High School, Boston, for his critical review of the manuscript and the proof of the book. |