SCHOOLMASTER'S ASSISTANT: BEING A PLAIN COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM OF PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC, ADAPTED TO THE USE OF SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES: EXEMPLIFIED AND ILLUSTRATED IN A MANNER CALCULATED ARITHMETIC. BY NATHAN DABOLL, A.M. AND NEW LONDON: PUBLISHED BY J. BOLLES: NEW YORK: SPALDING & SHEPARD, 189 1-2 BROADWAY. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by NATHAN DABOLL, A. M. AND DAVID A. DABOLL, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut. ว Lyman 6-26-36 32490 PREFACE. This work is designed to furnish Schools with a methodical, comprehens sive and practical system of Arithmetic; in which it has been the study of the Authors to render it a useful and easy text-book for Instructors, and also to convey instruction in an easy, concise and familiar manner to the pupil. The Authors are not disposed to derogate the merits of any system of Arithmetic now before the public, of which there is a great variety, and many meritorious works; none of which, perhaps, has received a greater share of public patronage than Daboll's Schoolmaster's Assistant: But it must be obvious to teachers of Arithmetic, and also to men of business, that Arithmetics written some thirty or forty years ago, however complete they were considered at that time, are now become more or less obsolete. One objection to those which were written about the time Federal Money was coming into use, is, that they are too much intermixed with, and contain more of the old currency or Sterling Money, than is necessary at the present day. Another objection to those of long standing is, a deficiency of proper illustrations of the rules and examples. To remedy these defects, a variety of Arithmetics have been compiled by different authors and published within a few years past. But for the use of Schools generally, there are in the opinion of experienced teachers some objections to them all for while the older publications have pursued too much of an arbitrary, dogmatic course of instruction; other more modern writers have pursued almost wholly the inductive or mental plan, leaving the pupil to solve without proper and concise rules nearly all questions in Arithmetic; and thus in endeavoring to correct one error, have, as regards Common Schools, run into another as great. A small introduction to the ground rules of Arithmetic, on the inductive or mental plan, may be useful: but considering that our Common Schools are made up principally of the children of mechanics, farmers, and working-men, whose time, allotted them to obtain a knowledge of Arithmetic and other branches of literature, is but a few months in each year, for a short period of years; to require them to perform the various operations in Arithmetic without plain, concise rules and illustrations, is as inconsistent as it would be to require each laboring man in the community, to make every implement of his particular trade, before he could enter upon the business of his occupation. In the execution and arrangement of "DABOLL'S COMPLETE SCHOOLMASTER'S ASSISTANT," now offered to the public, it has been the object of the Authors alike to guard against the dogmatic course pursued in Arithmetics of long standing, and also the deficiency of concise rules, so apparent in some of the more modern ones. In this work the Authors have given a short introduction to the first rules, on the inductive or mental plan of instruction, after which, it has been their object to give the rules. examples and illustrations, in a manner so clear and familiar as to be easily comprehended by the pupils, and also, to convey to their minds the reason of the same. They have also pursued a course of questioning on the rules, which will be found beneficial to the pupil, and convenient to the instructor. It is not the design of this work, to call forth the deep research of men of science, but |