The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-11-19


quence the computation is never nee
essary. Here are two ia nous "gags"
of boards of examiners with which
you are all familiar. They require a
knowledge of arithmatic beyond
what is required in the very lines of
business to which they are supposed
to pertain, yet they are treated of in
every school textbook on this sub
ject.
The truth is that III arithmetic we
ought to attempt to teach only that
which is common to all trades and
professions. certainly no more than is
common to a majority of them.
| what Is peculiar to the banker, the
insurance agent, the county auditor,
the co ector of customs. the exchange
broker, should tie taught AS belonging
toastrade4or profession TO be iearEesl1
only when it becomes necessary in
learning the trade. 1t may he said
that the customer at bank needs to
know how 20 discount a note as well
as the cashier hut to this | eply that
with a little common sense, if he
knows how to cast interest, he can de-
tect the error of the bank clerk,
though it may take him some time to
acquire the facility in doing 1t which
the clerk needs.
Ifa boy is skilled in addition, sub
traction. multiplication and division,
integral, fractional and compound,
and knows how to compute per cent
age and one good way of casting in
tereSt, he can take care of himself in
the commercial dealing to which his
business incidentally calls him. and
with that he can easily acquire facli-
ty in those computations which be-
long specially to his own branch of
trade,
So far as common problems in
mensuration are concerned, | would
have them provided for in n simple
course in geometry, which l would
have substituted for the many COM
mercial rules now required. If the
question were directly under consid-
GRAFTON, think it might be maintain.
ed with success that the measure
ments of surfaces and solids is of far
more general utility than the reckon
ing of annual or compound interest,
or bank discount or partial payments,
and certainly, to say the least, they
are quite as simple. l would say
study, master these applications at
any cost. if they were essential to the
mastery of the elements of arithme-
tic. but they are not. AS matter of
fact, l think it will be almost uni.
versally confessed that these special
applications are taught at the ex-
pense of an understanding of the ele-
ments, at the expense even of readi-
ness and accuracy in straight addi-
ton, subtraction, multiplication and
division of simple numbers.
If the claims of competing studies
had been duly weighed, and the work
now required had been fixed by a
competent commission of intelligent
men. in the light of circumstances as
there exist to-day. l would be slow to
question the wisdom Of their decis-
ION; but it is notorious fact that the
multiplicity of rules and cases to be
found in our textbooks on this SUBJ
ject. is due to the efforts of one au-
thor after another to make his books
morecomplete than the previous pub
lications with which they are to come
in competition; and being in the ar
ithmetic, the teacher. especially i'm
our ungraded schools, feels under OBJ
legation to teach them all, lest per-
chance it might be charged that he
himself could not do all the "sums"
in the book.