[What Is and What Might Be by Edmond Holmes]@TWC D-Link book
What Is and What Might Be

CHAPTER III
37/78

But to forbid a child to use his own perceptive faculties is to arrest the whole process of his growth.
I will now go back to the _Arithmetic_ lesson.

During the years in which the children in elementary schools were examined individually in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the one virtue which was inculcated while the arithmetic lesson was in progress was that of obedience to the formulated rule.

On the yearly examination day it was customary to give each child four questions in arithmetic, of which only one was a "problem." Two sums correctly worked secured a "pass"; and it was therefore possible for the child to achieve salvation in arithmetic by blindly obeying the various rules with which his teacher had equipped him.

He had, indeed, to decide for himself in each case which rule was to be followed; but he did this (in most schools), not by thinking the matter out, but by following certain by-rules given him by his teacher, which were based on a careful study of the wording of the questions set by the inspector, and which held good as long as that wording remained unchanged.

For example, if a subtraction sum was to be dictated to "Standard II," the child was taught that the number which was given out first was to be placed in the upper line, and that the number which came next was to be subtracted from this.


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