Ali EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION. 385 



Ten silver dimes equal one gold or silver dollar. 



Twenty nickle pieces equal one gold or silver dollar. 



One hundred copper pennies equal one gold or silver dollar. 



On the following day a new concrete table was prepared, and 

 the dollar sign, figures, symbols, and decimal point were sub- 

 stituted for the words in the written work. The relative values 

 of the lower denominations to one another were taught, and tables 

 constructed and written. The different denominations of paper 

 money up to the fifty-dollar bill were added to the coins; and 

 this money — about one hundred and fifty dollars — was used in 

 business transactions, which gave review of the number relations 

 already learned, and taught those necessary to the construction 

 and comprehension of the remaining tables. At the end of eight 

 months the children could use and write numbers to one hundred 

 and fifty, and the signs +, — , X, -^, =, $, and " (decimal point) ; 

 and understood the value of position in notation to three places 

 to the left and two to the right of a decimal point. Also, in 

 the oral work with money, they readily used the fractions one 

 half, one fourth, one tenth, one twentieth, and one hundredth ; 

 and most of them could write from memory thecusual tables from 

 one to twelve. In this first year no effort was made to do a de- 

 fined kind or amount of work ; the children spent from twenty to 

 thirty minutes each day at some mathematical work, but progress 

 and variety depended on their interest and capacities. A visitor 

 who had spent forty years in teaching sat through one of these 

 primary sessions. He expressed pleasure and surprise at the work 

 of the children in science, reading, and other branches, but was 

 incredulous, at first, about the work in number w^ith the money 

 at their desks, and the written work in figures and signs at the 

 blackboards. He went around among the children, tested them, 

 and watched to see if there were not some trick of parrot-like per- 

 formance. Finally, convinced of the genuine comprehension of 

 what they were doing by these children of six and seven, he said : 

 " I should not have believed it on the statement of any man or wom- 

 an whom I have known ; but I have seen it with my own eyes." 



It is a matter of regret to me that growing burdens of care 

 forbade the development of the number work during the second 

 and third years on the lines begun in the first year. To spend 

 from a half-hour to an hour a day for ten years at mathemat- 

 ics, with no better results than the average boy and girl of six- 

 teen can show, looks like a great waste of time and energy. May 

 not the cause be twofold : First, that the beginning work is made 

 silly by its simplicity, and insipid by being related to nothing 

 interesting ; second, that processes like the subtraction of large 

 numbers and long division are pressed upon the cliild before his 

 powers are adequate to their comprehension ? 



VOL. XL. — 29 



