A PLEA FOR INTELLIGENT TEACHING OF ARITHMETIC.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPE0TATOR."1
Sia,—In his last Report to the Committee of Council on Education, Mr. Matthew Arnold denies to " calculation " "
formative" power. "Formative," I suppose, is intended to be the equivalent of the German " bildend," from which comes " Bildung," generally translated "culture." If this is so, then Mr. Arnold intimates that the study of arithmetic confers no culture. Why, then, do we teach it P The majority of us never have any need of nine-tenths of what goes by the name of "arithmetic." Business men acquire their skill in trade, and not at school. A knowledge of addition and subtraction of money, of multiplication and division by one figure, and of the use of very simple tables, is sufficient for the practical needs of most of us. Whence, then, the consensus of the civilised world in favour of making arithmetic an indispensable part of every school curriculum ? Obviously, it is due to the conviction that the amount of culture derivable from the study of arithmetic rightly pursued is greater, in proportion to the inherent difficulty and extent of the subject, than can be obtained from any other branch of study. Let Mr. Arnold lead a class to detect any somewhat recondite, albeit elementary, property of numbers, e.g., divisibi- lity by nine, and let him witness the flash of delight in the pupils' eyes on their first perception of the truth ; next, let him call on the class to formulate this inward perception in short and accurate phrase, and watching the amount of mental energy called into play by this effort, let him again, if he can, deny to arithmetic its culture-giving power. Instances of this kind can be adduced ad infinitum, but I content myself with asserting that arithmetic, wisely taught, affords the best training of the powers of reasoning and of generalisation, and reveals to the student something of the laws and methods of human thought. Indeed, a liberal study of arithmetic exercises a beneficial in- fluence on almost every other intellectual pursuit.
I cordially admit that the mechanical cram-teaching of arith- metic universally prevalent in our grant-aided schools is not only not formative, but pernicious in every way. We are entitled, however, to claim from the "apostle of culture" that he should help us to rescue this subject from its degradation, which is so detrimental to the children's best interests. If, indeed, the con- tinuance of this degradation were desired, no better means to bring it about could be devised than to get an eminent man to proclaim form the housetop his acquiescence in it.—I am,
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