Excerpt from Spiral Plan Teaching Arithmetic

A brief description of one or more typical text-books of the old style will enable the reader to realize the fundamental defects of those made after that plan.

The author of a book of that class fails to understand that the logical development of the subject matter produces almost invariably a faulty arrangement of topics to be followed by the young pupil. The result of his labors may be a good book of reference, but a bad teaching book.

In the old grammars, the first place was given to an explanation of the word "grammar," then one of "English grammar." This was followed by the enumeration of the four parts, and a definition of each. Next in order would come the elaboration of the first part, covering many pages. The very young pupil was expected to learn that "orthography treats of letters, syllables, separate words, and spelling;" after which the classification of the letters was given. Vowels and consonants (with the double-barreled w and y), mutes and liquids, labials, dentals, etc., would help to befog the youthful intellect.

However, the student"s troubles were only beginning.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Spiral Plan Teaching Arithmetic (Classic Reprint) (John H. Walsh)