The Standard Arithmetic, for Schools of all Grades and for Business Purposes. No. 1. By James E. Ryan. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co.
Important changes have been made in arithmetical text-books within the last twenty years. Each new series of books presented a special claim for patronage. One contained several chapters previously omitted; another divided the subject into mental and written arithmetic; others followed the inductive to the exclusion of the analytic method. Each series may have been an improvement in some respects; but the gain has been theoretic and artistic rather than practical. The result has been to separate oral from written arithmetic; to increase the average number of books in a series to five; and to load the elementary works with intricate detail and useless puzzles.
As a rule, a child spends an hour a day of school-life in the study of arithmetic. This amount of time should suffice to teach the arithmetical processes necessary in ordinary business. Yet the majority of pupils never advance beyond the ground rules. This results from making the text-book the guide. So general is this custom that few teachers desire to run the risk of changing it, and the pupil is compelled to leave school before fractions have been reached. He carries with him the belief that there are two kinds of arithmetic, one mental, the other written; and while he may be able to explain an oral example, he can simply tell how the written example is done. The small number of pupils who reach the higher branches suffer from an overdose of commercial economy which can only be mastered when they come face to face with business affairs.
The text-books prepared by Mr. James E. Ryan afford a remedy for most of these defects. The elementary course contains all that can be taught to the mass of pupils. It includes the fundamental rules, fractions, decimals, denominate numbers, and percentage. Each division contains oral and written work, the same analysis being used in both cases. The mode of treatment is excellent. The book includes no more practice work than is absolutely necessary to secure facility and accuracy in calculation, while the analysis of each step is so clear that any pupil can easily comprehend it.
The chapters treating of fractions are cleared of obscure subdivisions, thereby dispensing with a mass of unnecessary rules for special cases. In addition to this improvement the rules for common and decimal fractions are made to correspond. Denominate numbers are treated with marked ability. Obsolete weights and measures are excluded. The various tables of the metric system are introduced in connection with the English standards.
A close examination of Mr. Ryan’s treatise will convince the most exacting teacher that it is an excellent arithmetic.
The Standard Arithmetic, for Schools of all Grades and for Business Purposes. No. 2. By James E. Ryan. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9 Barclay St.
This volume begins with simple numbers and carries the pupil through the commercial rules. The amount of arithmetical knowledge requisite for business purposes has grown with the enormous growth of insurance, annuities, etc., so that it has become necessary to define the limits of school instruction. The author includes percentage, interest, discount, partial payments, exchange, profit and loss, commission or brokerage, insurance, duties, taxes, equation of payments, proportion, involution, evolution, mensuration, and progression in the regular course. The discussion of the equation, mechanics, specific gravity, builders’ measurements, gauging, alligation, life insurance, annuities, stocks and bonds, freights and storage, etc., is reserved for the appendix.