Educational Topics. 499 



old world divorce of learning from life, has attracted much 

 attention, caused much severe criticism, and led to some fee- 

 ble efforts at reform. I take as an example of these efforts 

 one of the text books now in use in our common schools, 

 French's Common School Arithmetic. In the preface of 

 this work, the author states the fact that business men com- 

 plain that after leaving school they were obliged to learn, 

 and in many cases to devise for themselves methods of com- 

 putation adapted to their business. The author adds that 

 the universality of this experience led him to a careful and 

 protracted investigation into the philosophy of the mathe- 

 matical powers of the mind, and to a critical examination 

 into the present methods of teaching arithmetic. From 

 these investigations he became convinced that in order to 

 make practical arithmeticians, a radical change in the plan 

 of text books upon the subject is necessary. JNow this is a 

 wonderful, though rather late discovery to make, since the 

 complaint has existed this hundred years and more. But 

 the competition in school books, and the spirit of self inter- 

 est in their compilers, leads at last to the discovery, and to 

 the serious confession made in this preface, which is equally 

 applicable to every text book upon every branch of knowl- 

 edge now taught in our schools and colleges. 



I do not say that Dr. French, having made this discovery, 

 has not made something of an improvement in his arithme- 

 tic, though he goes at it in regular scholastic spirit, begin- 

 ning with a metaphysical inquiry into " the philosophy of 

 the development of the mathematical powers of the mind," 

 and he comes out pretty much from the hole he went in at, 

 since on the very first leaf of his book he gives a series of 



