The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1914-10-31

ute that-she was 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.
lNAA@@@ Perhaps nothing is more illuminative
~ in Mrs. Stoner's book than her account
of how she taught the child mathematics.
Winifred had failed to get any sort of grasp on the
subject. she says, until the mother was IN despair
fearing the child's mind might be lopsided. AT a
chautauqua meeting in New York, however the
mother met Prof. A. R. Hornbrook, a woman maine
matics teacher, who soon 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 a box and they would
take turns drawing them out, to see which could
get the most at a single grab. When helping the
maid shell peas they would try to see how many
peas there were 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, 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 a cannon shot
would topple over a given number of soldiers,
Winifred was able to decide how many were left
standing without stopping to count
Cancellation became a battle, one of them play
ing the numbers on one side of the dividing line
and the other playing the other. There never
were any quizzes, because Winifred 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.. X and got interested in algebra
Winifred never suffered the humiliation OF
physical punishment. When she did well, the good
Fairy Titania would hide goodies under her pill
low and when she was bad the fairy failed to ap
pear. If 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 consequences, while good be
havior meant tangible reward. She was never
permitted to stay at a single task when the point
of fatigue had arrived.
A striking instance Of Mrs. Stoner's methods
as well as an illustration of the child's ~intellec-
tual bias, is the story of Winifred and the humble
pee. In her zeal TO study the insect at nrst hand,
she picked one up. The natural consequences
followed. While she was yet suffering, Winifred
described her experience in these lines:
One day l saw a bumblebee, bumbling on a rose
And as l stood admiring him he stung me on the
nose.
My nose in pain It swelled so large it looked like
a potato,
So daddy said; but mother thought twas more
like a tomato.
And now. dear children. this advice I hope your
take from me,
And when you see a bumblebee Just let thai
humble be.
Like her mother, Winifred believes in woman
suffrage. She has written several poems in be
half of equal franchise rights, which have beer
published in various newspapers and magazines
Her Valentines for Suffragettes' are decided,
clever and have helped the cause.