The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1914-10-30

~
Throughout all this preliminary instruc-
7 ton, Winfred encouraged to take
- all the outdoor exercise possible. and
soon was the peer Of the boys OF her
/ age in the neighborhood at wrestling.
" 4: !. !: ! !.
- or throwing catching ball.
- From that time, Winifred's life became
E$R@ a prolonged play OF the game OF Lets
,468EEA | Pretend" Sometimes she and her moth
&#W ! er would "be somebody" and often each
W I'll would be herself and alter ego. That
wv is, Mrs. Stoner would play one minute
that she herself and the next min
ute that she her dear friend Nellie
and Winifred would alternate between
being herself and her dear friend Lucy.
In this way they often could get up rath-
er a sizeable party when about to make
some new exploration into the realm OF
, knowledge
AShsSAhxHMI Perhaps nothing is m1e illumnative
sS&RaE&XSMl in Mrs Stoners book than her account
of how she taught the child mathematics
Winfred had failed to get any sort OF grasp on the
subject she says, until the mother was in despair
fearing the childs mind might be lopsided. AT a
chautauqua meeting in New York, however, the
mother met Prof A. r. Hornbrook, woman mathe
matics teacher who soon put her the right track
Professor Hornbrook explained that Mrs. Stoner
had been successful in teaching music, art poetry
history and languages because she herself loved
those studies and had failed To teach mathematics
It, She volunteered to send weekly outlines of work
which Mrs Stoner was to employ according to her
ideas.
Mother and child then began playing games with
small objects, such beans and buttons These
objects would be placed in box and they would
take turns drawing them out, to which could
get the most at single grab. When helping the
maid shell peas they would try to see how many
peas there in two or more pods. In this
way rudimentary lessons in addition were taught
To make greater progress they played parchesi
with small dice and got practice from adding up
the spots First they used two dice. bs finally
they used five and Winifred able to add
all the spots without conscious effort. They
played all sorts OF games which would require
simple addition and multiplication. In learning
subtraction they would have battles with tin SOL
diers and marbles and whenever cannon shot"
would topple over given number of soldiers,
Winifred able to decide how many were left
standing without stopping to count
, Cancellation became battle, one OF them play.
ing the numbers side Of the dividing line
, and the other playing the other. There never
, any quizzes, because Winifred was taught to
, get results and not taught rules. She
learned the values of money by the actual
OF coins and the values Of market products by
going TO market herself To learn pharmacists
weights and measures, Winifred played at keep.
ing drug store and sold things to her mother.
And it went through the whole subject, until
at last the girl became fascinated with the funny
Winifred never suffered the humiliation OF
physical punishment, When she did we'll. the good
Fairy Titania would hide goodies under her pill
|, low and when she bad the fairy failed to ap
= pear. II she was ten minutes tardy about some
: task. that meant ten minutes lost which had to
. be taken out OF her next recreation time. She
soon learned that ofenses could bring about their
-, own unpleasant consequence while good be-
: havior meant tangible reward. She never
. permitted to stay at single task when the point
OF fatigue had arrived.
y striking instance OF Mrs. Stoner's methods,
- well as an illustration OF the childs intellec-
tual bias is the story OF winifred and the bumbe-
bee. In her zeal to study the insect at first hand.
= she picked one up. The natural consequences
= followed While she yet suffering. Winifred
= described her experience IN these lines:
D One day bumblebee, bumbling a rose,
And az stood admirng him he stung me the
L My in pain Il swelled large It looked like
. n potato
O. So daddy said: but mother thought twas moro
like a tomato
% And now dear children. this advice hope you'll
y take from me,
- And when you a bumblebee Just let that
humble be.
q. Like her mother wlnifred believes In woman
~ suffrage. She has written several poems In be
ID half OF equal franchise rights, which have been
g. published I'M various newspapers and magazines
10 Her "valeutines for Surragettes" decidedly
Il clover nave helped the cause