Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1914-10-30


in;fred had failed to get any sort of grasp the
subject she says, until the mother was in despair,
fearing the child's mind might be lopslded AT
chautauuua meeting in New York. however, the
mother met Prof. A. R. Hornbrook, woman maine
mates teacher who put her on 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
because she had not brought the fairy interest into
It, She volunteered to send weekly outlines OF work.
which Mrs Stoner was to employ according to her
own ideas.
Mother and child then began playing games with
small objects, such as beans and buttons. These
objects would be placed in box and they would
take turns drawing them out, to see which could
get the most at single grab. When helping the
maid shell peas they would try to see how many
peas there we're in two 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
rne spots. First they used two dice, but finally
they used five and Winifred was soon 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 topp1e over given number of soldiers
Winifred able to decide how many were left
standing without stopping to count.
ing the numbers one side of the dividing line
and the other playing the other. There never
were any QuiZzes because Wtnifred was taught to
get results and was not taught rules. She
learned the values of money by the actual use
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 SO it went through the whole subject, until
at last the girl became fascinated with the funny
doings of Mr.. and got interested in algebra
Winifred 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 APP
pear. If she 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 offenses could bring about their
own unpleasant consequences, while good be-
havior meant tangible reward. She never
permitted to stay at single task when the point
Of fatigue had arrived.
A striking instance of Mrs. Stoner's methods
as well as an illustration of the chd's intellec-
tual bias is the story of Winifred and the humble
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:
One day saw bumblebee, bumbling on a rose
And as stood admiring him he stung me on the
nose.
My nose in pain it sweIled so large it looked like
a potato,
So daddy said; but mother thought twas more
like tomato.
And now, dear children this advice hope you'n
take from me,
And when you see bumblebee Just let that
humble be.
Like her mother Winifred believes in woman
suffrage She has written several poems In be-
half of equal franchise rights, which have been
published in various newspapers and magazines.
Her valentines for Sufragettes" are decidedly
clever and have helped the cause