this to the teacher for her approval. If it seems necessary to have the child write the same sentence several times, the mere matter of directing him to write the sentence on one board, then to go to the next board and write it, and then back to the first to write it a third time, gives him pleasure, enhances his interest, and strengthens his power to make effort. And thus much orderly activity is combined with all reading exercises. I may remark in passing that during the child's first year at school he is kept in his seat less than one fourth of the time. The desk, if the matter is not closely watched, proves a fatal obstacle to the employment of the child's motor energy, not only in the first year but in the succeeding years.
Arithmetic is a subject which presents large opportunities for the employment of the motor activities in teaching it, and the advocates of manual training ought to have shown us long ago how nearly the whole of arithmetic can be taught through manual-training exercises. Such a correlation is possible. But those schools which have stood for manual training from the first, and which possess to-day magnificent equipments, seem not to have apprehended that these two subjects of their curriculum can be made to go hand in hand. Because of their opportunities they should have worked out for the benefit of the educational world a method of teaching arithmetic and at the same time manual training in wood and metals.
But more convenient materials than wood or metal are at our command for the ordinary schoolroom. Paper and cardboard admit of tridimensional constructions in great variety, and by the folding and cutting of paper all necessary space-forms of two dimensions are easily made. Then, too, the floor, and even the conventional blackboard, can be brought into much larger requisition for the drawing of plans and diagrams. Scales and weights, measures of capacity, and other concrete objects and appliances can be brought into service. Moreover, buying, measuring, and selling should have a place. By the use of all these accessories, in graded exercises throughout the whole course of arithmetic from the class of beginners to the class completing the study, large employment can be given to the motor activities. Such procedure would render the instruction in arithmetic less formal and more informing, and would incite a greater degree of interest in pupils.
Inventional geometry is a subject which is regarded by all who have had experience in teaching it as a most interesting and educative study.[1]
The series of problems devised by William George Spencer
- ↑ See Popular Science Monthly, January, 1889.
