Is designed to give pupils of the grammar-school age an intelligent knowledge of the subject and a moderate power of independent thought.
Whether Arithmetic is studied for mental discipline or for practical mastery over the every-day problems of common life, mechanical processes and routine methods are of no value.
Pupils can be trained to logical habits of mind and stimulated to a high degree of intellectual energy by solving problems adapted to their capacities. They become practical arithmeticians, not by learning special business forms, but by founding their knowledge on reasoning which they fully comprehend, and by being so thoroughly exercised in logical analysis that they are independent of arbitrary rules.
This Arithmetic contains a great number of well-graded and progressive problems, made up for youths from ten to fourteen years of age. Definitions and explanations are made as brief and simple as possible. It is not intended that definitions should be committed to memory, but that they should be simply discussed by teacher and pupils. Every teacher, of course, will be at liberty to give better definitions, and to make a better presentation of methods, than those exhibited in the book.
In short, the chief object in view will be gained if pupils are trained to solve the problems by neat and intelligent methods, and are kept free from set rules and formulas.
A great many number-problems are given in the first pages of the book, so that the necessary facility and accuracy in computing under the four fundamental rules may be acquired; as want of accuracy and rapidity in mere calculations distracts the attention which should be given to the investigation and correct statement of numerical exercises.
The Appendix contains a short chapter on the Metric System, a chapter on Mensuration, and Miscellaneous Problems. The Metric System is treated here because the great majority of grammar-school pupils have no time for the subject, while those who have can as well learn the system at this stage of their progress as earlier. The chapter on Mensuration is suited to the ability of beginners. The intention is not to give a system of Geometry, but to render familiar those notions of Geometry that are indispensable for practical purposes. The whole subject has been illustrated and enforced by numerous practical examples.
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,
BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO.