Special Method in Arithmetic

us chapters will be definitely organized and applied. To simplify and concentrate the labors in arithmetic upon essentials, to avoid wasted effort, to give continuity and unity to the entire course of study, is the aim of the present chapter. The problem of method in arithmetic, as in other studies, is the problem of mastering and applying principles and of combining them effectively into an organized whole. But arithmetic as a science is extremely abstract. The first great question, how to concrete arithmetic and to relate it closely to a child's experience, has been a source of much controversy, and has led both the theorists and practical teachers into widely divergent, and even contradictory, plans of study. On the assumption that the number idea and its developments are based upon measurement, as demonstrated by Dewey and McLellan in their " Psychology of Number," we will first run through the varied series of concrete materials in second and third grades which may be employed as the basis for activities in measuring and which also furnish an opportunity for the number idea to develop. " Number arises in and through the activity of mind in dealing with objects. . . . Number is not (psychologically) got from things, it is put into them. It is almost equally absurd to attempt to teach numerical ideas and processes without things and to teach them simply by things. Numerical ideas can be normally acquired and numerical operations fully mastered...