It also seems probable that with enough care other systematic plans of textbooks can be much improved in this respect. From every point of view, for example, the early work in arithmetic should be adapted to some extent to the healthy childish interests in home affairs, the behavior of other children, and the activities of material things, animals, and plants.

TABLE 9

Frequency of Appearance of Certain Words about Family Life, Play, and Action in Eight Elementary Textbooks in Arithmetic, pp. 1-50.

A B C D E F G H
baby 2 4
brother 2 6 1 1 1
family 2 2 4
father 1 3 5 2 1
help
home 2 4 4 2 2 7 1
mother 4 2 9 5 5 1 7
sister 1 2 2 9 1 1
fork
knife
plate 4 2 2 1
spoon
doll 10 1 10 6 10 9
game 1 3 5 5
jump 4
marbles 10 4 10 10 1
play 1 3
run 1 3
sing
tag
toy 1
car 2 4 2 3 1
cut 10 6 2 8
dig 2
flower 1 4 1 1 2
grow 1
plant 2
seed 3 1
string 1 10 1 1
wheel 5 10

The words used by textbooks give some indication of how far this aim is being realized, or rather of how far short we are of realizing it. Consider, for example, the words home, mother, father, brother, sister, help, plate, knife, fork, spoon, play, game, toy, tag, marbles, doll, run, jump, sing, plant, seed, grow, flower, car, wheel, string, cut, dig. The frequency of appearance in the first fifty pages of eight beginners' arithmetics was as shown in Table 9. The eight columns refer to the eight books (the first fifty pages of each). The numbers refer to the number of times the word in question appeared, the number 10 meaning 10 or more times in the fifty pages. Plurals, past tenses, and the like were counted. Help, fork, knife, spoon, jump, sing, and tag did not appear at all! Toy and grow appeared each once in the 400 pages! Play, run, dig, plant, and seed appeared once in a hundred or more pages. Baby did not appear as often as buggy. Family appeared no oftener than fence or Friday. Father appears about a third as often as farmer.

Book A shows only 10 of these thirty words in the fifty pages; book B only 4; book C only 12; and books D, E, F, G, and H only 13, 8, 14, 13, 10, respectively. The total number of appearances (counting the 10s as only 10 in each case) is 40 for A, 9 for B, 60 for C, 42 for D, 25 for E, 62 for F, 30 for G, and 37 for H. The five words—apple, egg, Mary, milk, and orange—are used oftener than all these thirty together.

If it appeared that this apparent neglect of childish affairs and interests was deliberate to provide for a more systematic treatment of pure arithmetic, a better gradation of problems, and a better preparation for later genuine use than could be attained if the author of the textbook were tied to the child's apron strings, the neglect could be defended. It is not at all certain that children in grade 2 get much more enjoyment or ability from adding the costs of purchases for Christmas or Fourth of July, or multiplying the number of cakes each child is to have at a party by the number of children who are to be there, than from adding gravestones or multiplying the number of hairs of bald-headed men. When, however, there is nothing gained by substituting remote facts for those of familiar concern to children, the safe policy is surely to favor the latter. In general, the neglect of childish data does not seem to be due to provision for some other end, but to the same inertia of tradition which has carried over the problems of laying walls and digging wells into city schools whose children never saw a stone wall or dug well.

I shall not go into details concerning the arrangement of courses of study, textbooks, and lesson-plans to make desirable connections between arithmetical learning and sports, housework, shopwork, and the rest. It may be worth while, however, to explain the term self-management, since this source of genuine problems of real concern to the pupils has been overlooked by most writers.