EDWIN C. HEWETT, LL. D., EX-PRESIDENT OF THE ILLINOIS STATE NORMAL UNIVERSITY. CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY. III. Manual of Arithmetic-Rand-McNally Series. By EDWIN C. HEWETT, LL. D. Designed for Normal Schools, Teachers' Institutes, Price, 50c COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY RAND, MCNALLY & CO. PREFACE. IN MAKING this book, the aim has been to justify its title, Practical Arithmetic. In pursuing this end, fundamental principles and processes have received large attention, and they have been amply illustrated by examples and explanations. Few rules have been given, but the pupil's power to appreciate what is required, and to find his own rules or processes, has been cultivated at every step. It would seem that the plan of structure in many, perhaps most, of our text-books on Arithmetic is to give the pupils a rule or formula for solving problems after they have been classified and arranged under appropriate cases." It appears to be taken for granted that the pupil will have the ability to arrange and classify the problems he will meet in actual life, and to bring them under the proper remembered rule or formula. 66 It need not be said that this book has not been made on that plan. The principles of Arithmetic are very few, and the fundamental processes are not numerous. It is of prime importance that the pupil should become thoroughly familiar with those principles and versed in those processes. He is then prepared to make the application directly to the practical problems in life as they arise, without waiting to find the class or case" of the problem, and to evoke the appropriate rule from his memory. For this reason a large part of the problems in this book are given promiscuously, as they will arise in practical life. 66 What has been said will explain why much the larger part of the book is given to subjects which are often rather hurriedly and superficially treated in the earlier pages of some text-books. Furthermore, it will explain why comparatively little space is given to topics that often occupy a large place in the later pages of many books. No very large space is given to Percentage; no division into "cases" is made; no formulas for solution are given. Little is said about Partial Payments, Taxes, Duties, Partnership, or Excnange. No room is given to Arbitration of Exchange, Banking, Equation of Accounts, etc. In none of these subjects are any new arithmetical principles involved, nor any new fundamental processes introduced. The pupil who is well grounded in the essentials of Arithmetic will readily learn their special applications in any of these subjects should he have occasion to do so. Το very many such occasion will never arise. Besides, is it not true that thorough business men generally have little respect for what is usually taught in the schools, concerning the applications of Arithmetic to the more intricate operations of extensive business, or to its specific lines? Business men require their clerks to be accurate and rapid in all the fundamental processes and operations of Arithmetic; and they desire them to be so well grounded in arithmetical principles that they can apply them understandingly to practical problems that may arise in any line of business. That is, they want them to be able to do, and to know why they do. But we think it is generally true that the application itself can be mastered more satisfactorily in the office than in the school. Besides, in very many cases—as in the extending of taxes, or the finding of interest in banks, or in making bills for lumber, for excavations, for mechanics' work, etc.-the results are not obtained by computation; they are taken from prepared tables. In view of all these reasons it does not seem wise to spend a great amount of time or effort on these applications in ordinary schools. It is supposed that most of the pupils who use this book will be prepared for it by the use of the Primary of the same series. This will be much to their advantage. But it is believed that the book is so constructed that the pupil can use it profitably and intelligently, no matter where, or in what way, he may have received his earlier training. Competent and careful observers often assert that too much time, proportionally, is given to Arithmetic in schools, and that too little accuracy and proficiency is gained. There is truth in both statements. And it is hoped that the use of this book will correct these evils. AUGUST 22, 1896. E. C. H. |