AUTHOR OF MENTAL ARITHMETIC; EXERCISES IN ARITHMETICAL NEW YORK: IVISON & PHINNEY, 178 FULTON STREET; 1854. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by JAMES B. THOMSON, in the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 216 WILLIAM STREET, N. Y. PREFACE. In order to pursue the study of Arithmetic with pleasure and success, two things are essential. First, the Tables and elementary principles must be thoroughly learned; Second, their application must be fully understood. These points are alike indispensable to progress in the science and correctness in business calculations. The New Table Book now offered to the public, is designed to assist both the teacher and the pupil in the accomplishment of these important ends. In its plan, the author has been guided by the following considerations: 1. As soon as a child learns a fact, or principle in arithmetic, he should be taught its application, and begin to practice it. In this way an interest will be awakened in the subject, and the pupil will be relieved from the irksomeness of learning and repeating abstract results and principles, while he is ignorant of their nature and use. 2. The pupil should be furnished with a series of progressive lessons in numbers, which he can understand, and which he should be required to master by personal application, either at home or in school. By this means he learns how to study, how to think and reason; he avoids those mechanical habits, so common among school children; is furnished with profitable employment, and thus escapes a multitude of evils. 3. Teachers of primary arithmetic need a convenient hand-book, which may serve as a guide to the order of subjects in conducting dictation exercises, and assist them in defining principles, and drilling their classes upon the slate and blackboard. In carrying out this plan, each of the compound tables is followed by appropriate exercises, while the tables in simple numbers are presented in parts, with practical examples under each part. These examples serve as a review of the table, while they illustrate its use, and teach the learner how to put the knowledge he acquires into practice. After the pupil has mastered the simple Tables and become familiar with their application to mental solutions, he is taught to apply them to exercises upon the slate, and to recapitulate the principles he has learned, in a simple, concise, and comprehensive manner. The language of the definitions and rules is purposely conformed to that of the Practical and Higher Arithmetics, while the examples are all different from those contained in them. This is a dictate of common sense, and, it is believed, will meet with the approbation of every practical teacher. It needs no arguments to show, that to require a child to learn one set of rules and definitions in a primary book, and when he is advanced to a higher one in the same series, compel him to unlearn these and learn another set, distracts his mind, disgusts him with the study, and is worse than useless. In preparing the Tables of Weights and Measures, great pains have been taken to correct them according to present law and present usage, to point out and reject such denominations as are obsolete. In connection with these Tables will be found much practical and scientific information not contained in other books of the kind. If the work in any manner, accomplishes the object for which it is designed, if it shall lighten the toils of the primary school teacher, and facilitate the progress of the learner, the author will feel himself amply rewarded. NEW YORK, May 12th, 1852. J. B. THOMSON. ARITHMETICAL TABLES. SECTION I NUMBERS. 1. WHAT is a single thing, as a chair, a book, a slate, called? . Ans. A single thing is called a unit, or one. 2. If another single thing is put with it, what is the col lection called? Ans. Two. 3. If another still is put with it, what is it called? Ans. Three. 4. If another, what? Ans. Four. 5. If another, what? Ans. Five. 6. What are the terms, one, two, three, four, five, &c.? Ans. They are the names of numbers. 7. What then is Number? Ans. NUMBER signifies a unit, or a collection of units. 8. How are numbers commonly expressed? Ans. By the following ten characters, or figures, viz: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, naught.* * The most effectual and expeditious way to teach a child to distinguish the figures, and associate with each the number which it denotes, is to exercise him frequently in writing them upon the slate and blackboard. |