IN ALGEBRA BY ALBERT HARRY WHEELER TEACHER OF MATHEMATICS IN THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL AT Worcester, WITH EIGHT THOUSAND EXAMPLES INCLUDING THREE THOUSAND MENTAL EXERCISES BOSTON THIS PREFACE HIS book may be used by students who have completed a course in arithmetic but who have not previously studied algebra. The statements of all principles and the explanations of all examples have been made as simple and direct as possible. Emphasis has been placed upon the reason for each step taken, whether it be in the proof of a principle or in the explanation of an exercise. Such proofs of principles as may be omitted by the student when taking the subject for the first time have been plainly marked. The examples are all new and have not been copied from other text-books. There are 4,465 exercises for written solution, 3,301 for mental solution, and 423 explanatory examples, a total of 8,189 examples. These examples have been so constructed and graded as to contain a great variety of number-combinations. Thus the student is constantly drilled in arithmetic. The writer first used mental exercises in the class-room in 1895, and has constantly employed them since that time with the exception of the years 1897-99, which were spent in graduate study at Clark University. The first ten or fifteen minutes of each recitation period are commonly devoted by his pupils to the mental solution of a large number of simple drill problems. In this way all of the pupils have an opportunity to recite several times during every recitation period. |