THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRATY 113852 ASTOR, LEN R Copyright, 1902, by The Werner Company. (All rights reserved) PREFACE. FOR WHOM · RIMARILY this HELP is for teachers and intelligent parents. They will find in it much explanatory matter which is in accord with the best methods of to-day. The supplementary work is full, and will enable them to explain the actual business forms and transactions, as well as the elementary work, a clear and concise manner. Older pupils can gain much practical knowledge from it along the lines of the work of the a countant, practical estimates, land surveying, insurance, stocks, tnds, etc. Most of these are illustrated from actual life, and fese illustrations will do more to clear these matters up in the nds of pupils than will hours of explanation. A PLACE OF ITS OWN. The number of text-books written on arithmetic in this county is legion. There has been a remarkable increase in the last fw years. Each new author has felt that his book would be 1 ore practical and more satisfactory than those before. Of them l, however, there are but three or four that have become espeCally prominent, and that because of real merit. The author makes no attempt to compete with them, or to present any new lan of teaching the subject. The HELP has a field of its own, the most casual perusal will disclose. WRITTEN ne years since, Col. Parker said in effect that the arithof the future would contain neither rules, definitions nor explanations. Such a condition will exist when we have the ideal school and each teacher has no absences in her room and no more pupils than can secure all the individual attention needed to suit their varying degrees of intelligence. Many of the recent arithmetics bave attempted to approach the ideal of Col. Parker and in so doing have found more or less failure. As a consequence there is more complaint, perhaps, from teachers and parents of the difficulties encountered in the study of arithmetic than ever before. This is more than suffi cient reason for this HELP. ITS PURPOSE Realizing, from a large experience, the difficulties that arithmetic presents to the average child, the author, at the suggestion and with the advice of many prominent schoolmen has prepared this HELP for all who find difficulty with the subject. The aim has been to cover all regular text-book work in the subject with special reference to those parts with which students have most trouble and to the parts most likely to be of practical value to the pupil in after life. While many pupils, pass to a study of higher mathematics there is a large proportion whose arithmetical knowledge of the grammar school must serve them for all purposes in practical life. To the latter much of the work in this volume will be invaluable, while the former class cannot help but be much benefited by it. The whole has been made so simple that anyone of ordinary intelligence will find it practically a self-teacher. SPECIAL VALUE TO TEACHERS Those teachers who are away from the towns and cities and those in the cities, who know how difficult it is to procure ex-planatory and supplementary matter at the right time for thei arithmetic work, will especially appreciate this HELP. The articles and illustrations combine to give the phases of arithmetic that belong to actual life a clearness and virility that otherwise can only be obtained from actually sharing in the various business transactions treated. IN THE HOME — A few of its uses as a home book are here enumerated:1. For the pupil who is unavoidably absent for a few days the present spiral method affords no chance to learn what the teacher has given the class in his absence. To be sure, if he is unusually bright he will pick up in various ways what he missed. If he is not bright it is probable that he becomes a stumbling-block to the class for a time. With this HELP in his home he can, in most cases, make up the deficiency. 2. In the teaching of denominate numbers, practical estimates, percentage, exchange, discount, stocks, bonds, notes, insurance, and other business matters, the pupil cannot always follow the teacher's explanation. If he has a simple and truthful treatment of these subjects, well illustrated, at home he may easily inform himself, or the intelligent parent, after reading it, can give him a home talk on the subject that is not a "lesson" and which he will remember because of the place and manner in which it was given. 3. If his memory fails him in some important point either while in school or later, it is a reference work to which he may refer to renew his knowledge. He cannot always have a teacher, and no pupil can remember all he is taught and sometimes he forgets that which he afterwards needs. The arithmetics of to day leave a vacancy here which the HELP fills in a way to assist in making him an independent thinker. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS After each subject a series of problems with solutions and other explanatory matter is given. Wherever it seemed wise, |