CONTINUED TUITION 47 



Now, I wanted Lola to learn to rap the entire word 

 " wegen," for instance, for this simplification of 

 expression, as put into practice by Rolf, would be of 

 no use to her in view of the method of pronunciation 

 I was adopting with the consonants. Those who had 

 taught Rolf understood his spelling quite as well as 

 I in time came to understand Lola's, but with regard 

 to their system the objection was frequently put 

 forward (more especially by persons bent on main- 

 taining an unfriendly attitude) that " any construction 

 might be placed on these answers," and, I must 

 admit, that there was some truth in this. Not that 

 this objection could always be justified, yet there were 

 sufficient grounds for it. The great value of Rolf's 

 mode of expressing himself was shown in the way 

 in which he added letter to letter in accordance with 

 their sounds (and I doubt whether any mechanical 

 aids or accessories would have been likely to achieve 

 the same results), thus giving proof that he was capable 

 of independent expression. Their system proved 

 incidentally to have what I might call a " side value," 

 for Lola's mode of expression, due to my own method 

 of teaching led to quite different results yet on the 

 same level. 



Lola now practised her alphabet in the morning and 

 in the afternoon we continued multiplications ; rather 

 more slowly than at first, but we ultimately reached a 

 hundred. New work was then added in the form of 

 division and subtraction. She soon had this all so 

 firmly fixed in her little head that I was able to put 

 her to easy sums and ask : " What is 3 x 3 + 10 5 ?" 

 The answer after a few seconds being " 14." A 

 hundred was rapped out with her left paw = ten raps. 



As soon as she had mastered the entire alphabet I 

 proceeded to contract the letters into words. I said : 



