The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-01-03
REAL FOUND
IN TEXT BOOKS
A Criticism of Language Books
in Use in the Schools of
North Carolina.
PART II.

CoIaw and EllwoOd's Primary and
Colaw and Ellwood'S Advanced. At
ter five years of unsatisfactory use, the
gap between these two books was
bridged by the re-adoption, in 1906, Of
the same two books with the addition
Of another bOOk-Colaw and Dukes
intermediate. These three books en-
brace go pages of matter to be used
in grades g..
The primary book begins to teach
the number idea by means of ratio, d
foolish fad which had it's day in the
schools some Is or 20 years ago and
has been discarded along with the
books which carried the method. It
is safe to say that very few teachers
can teach the number concept after
the plan set forth in this book. Any
attempt, therefore, on the part of or
binary teachers to use the first pages
of this book as intended must result in
failure and disaster. OF course there
is a place for the ratio idea of num-
Der, but it is not in the first grades
Of school.
The second book of this series is d
fairlyPsensible arithmetic. 1t omits
most of the stock monstrositieS like
compound proportion, apothecaries'
weight, Troy weight, square and cube
root, English money, stocks and
oAA|H1 pa tiIS SIlI o1Id LINZ n 1
contains plenty of arithmetic for the
elementary schools. But we must have
more than enough. Hence the ad-
vanced book is placed on the list and
must be used. This advanced book
has 442 pages of matter.
It is the Joker of our elementary
arithmetic course Of study. 1t con-
tains algebra and geometry in addi-
ton to arithmetic of all kinds. Here
IN dread array are the old anticipated
proportion, greatest commOn devisOr.
exchange, Troy weight, square root,
apothecaries' weight, surveyors meas
ure, and many others. Along with
these antique goods, there is informa-
ton about t~riangles, trapezoids, circles,
parallelograms, rectangular solids,
prisms. cylinders, cones, pyramids,
spheres, similar figures. and the Pv-
thagorean Theorem. But that is not
all. This book pretends to tell pupils
how to make loans, discount notes, en-
gage in the insurance business, con-
duct exchange, find specific gravity,
cast out mines, average payments, how
to engage in.the stock and bond bust
ness also banking. and to manipulate
the intricacies Of the metric system of
weights and measures. And not CON
tent with running the gamut OF all
possible arithmetic g~ymnastic, this
book ends with an introduction to al
zebra.
III Cl1o 10 dlSSOId DeI1lS
placed last in the book could not do
so much harm in the hands of our I'M
trained teachers were algebra not scat
tered through the entire book. Be
ginning with age %, algebra, in the
guise of real algebraic processes and
problems, occupies a rather promi-
nen place.
But the reader will not be able
properly to appreciate the utter sense
lessness of this book in the elementary
schools without q bill of PARTICULARS
Here is a subtraction example, from
page "A, just as given:
1t would be only 1aughable to see
such a problem in one of our text
months long, but it is hardly more
than a hundred days. Such foolish
ness, therefore, becomes more Of a
tragedy than a comedy, when we
think of children with only short
school opportunities forced to spend
their precious time on such nonsense.
Again, on page 81, the pupil is Sc,
to working problems about the corn
crop of 1888 and the oyster crop OF
1898. These statistical problems, OF
course. v been out Of date fol
years. but it never seems to occur tc
n " Siiiio Gil y DOOkS
to leave such classic anachronisms out
of the arithmetics.
And again. or page 81. we have such
thrilling and practical pSoblems as
these:
1.-TWO rains left Chicago at thu
same time. one going west at the rate
of Sc miles an hour, the other east a.
the rate of % miles an hour How IA,
apart were they in IT hours?" And.
eff a COW is worth Z sheep and E
horse is worth s cows. how many
sheep are worth as much as 10 horse:
and % cows?"
The two trains sum cannot possibly
be a statement Of fact. and the domes
tic animal sum would do credit to thu
prehistoric days when our ancestors
had no money and resorted to bartel
as a means of exchange.
But here is another problem which
will seriously make sensible peopl'