Teacher. Shew slates. ·(after inspection) Go on, the next. 1st child. Third column downwards; 1 I carry and 1 6th 12 and 3 are 15. -15 and 2 are 17;-set down 17: the 7 under the double line, and directly under the column I am proving, and the 1 to the left. Teacher. Are the figures immediately under the double line the same as those immediately above it? Yes. 8th child. Teacher. The sum, then, is proved, and found to be right: rub out the proof. It contributes much both to the ease of the teacher, and to the steadiness and improvement of the class, and it is therefore of great consequence, to have, for every operation in the elementary rules, a prescribed form of words; from which the children, without express permission, are on no account allowed to deviate. The form used by us in Simple Addition will appear from the foregoing details. Until a child is just about to leave the Simple Addition class, he is generally obliged to adhere to it without the slightest omission or variation. After going through the progressive sums, in which the class are gradually led on from the easiest to the most difficult combinations of figures, they proceed to sums containing the whole of the digits; which are set down indiscriminately, as in the examples given in our common books of arithmetic". At the same time that children are formed into a Simple Addition class, and enter upon the progressive sums, they begin likewise to be exercised, by their teacher, in the following Tables. About one third of the hour appropriated to arithmetic is usually occupied in this way. e When the sum is finished, it appears thus on each of the slates: f Here also, as in the progressive sums, the key to each column is inserted in small figures in the teacher's book. |