Intellectual Arithmetic: Upon the Inductive Method of Instruction (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Intellectual Arithmetic: Upon the Inductive Method of Instruction

The names of a few of the first numbers are usually learned very early and children frequently learn to count as far as a hundred before they learn their letters.

As soon as children have the idea of, more and less, and the names of a few of the first numbers, they are able to make small calculations. And this we see them do ever day about their playthings, and about the little affairs whic they are called upon to attend to. The idea of more and less implies addition hence they will often perform these operations without any previous instruction. If, for example, one child has three apples, and another five, they will readily tell how many they both have and how many one has more than the others If a child be requested to bring three apples for each person in the room, he will calculate very readily how many to bring, if the number does not exceed those he has learnt. Again, if a child be requested to divide a number of apples among a certain number of persons, he will contrive a way to do it, and will tell how many each must have. The method which children take to do these things, though always correct, is not always the most expeditious.

The fondness which children usually manifest for these exercises, and the facility with which they perform them, seem to indicate that the science of? Numbers, to a certain extent, should be among the first lessons taught to them.

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