NOTICE. THE Committee of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful It will of course be their duty not to sanction anything incon- By Order of the Committee, THOMAS COATES, Secretary. A short Account of the State of Education in Norway On the Study of the Italian Language and Literature . REVIEWS. NOTICE. THE Committee of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge are desirous of explaining the degree of superintendence which they think that they ought to exercise with respect to this publication. It will of course be their duty not to sanction anything inconsistent with the general principles of the Society. Subject, however, to this general superintendence, they feel that the objects of the Society will be better forwarded by placing before the readers of this work the sentiments of able and liberal men, and thus enabling them to form their own conclusions, as well from the difference as from the agreement of the writers, than by proposing to them, as if from authority, any fixed rule of judgment, or one uniform set of opinions. It would also be inconsistent with the respect which the Committee entertain for the persons engaged in the preparation of these papers, were they to require them strictly to submit their own opinions to any rule that should be prescribed to them. If, therefore, the general effect of a paper be favourable to the objects of the Society, the Committee will feel themselves at liberty to direct its publication: the details must be the author's alone, and the opinions expressed on each particular question must be considered as his, and not those of the Committee. As they do not profess to make themselves answerable for the details of each particular essay, they cannot, of course, undertake for the exact conformity of the representations which different authors may make of the same facts; nor, indeed, do they, for the reasons already given, feel that such conformity is requisite. By Order of the Committee, THOMAS COATES, Secretary. THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. ON TEACHING ARITHMETIC*. WE may say of instructors, that each individual has either his own system, or no system at all. And this refers, not only to those who live by tuition, but to all parents and guardians, and is said, not in ridicule of the various plans which appear every day, but from a conviction that the manner and degree in which the intellects of children develope themselves, are so various, that few general rules are applicable; whence he must cease to be the slave of a system and become its master, who would undertake the management of an infant mind. Very few can place themselves in such a position, as must be evident to any one who has had to instruct a class of boys, who have left the nursery and the preparatory school, to enter upon subjects which need a little previously acquired power of thought. They then begin their education, as their parents think, who little guess that the most important part of it is already past, and that they themselves have incurred a greater responsibility than they can ever afterwards lay upon the shoulders of another. If any man, who only knew the real meaning of the word education, were told that the rising generation of the richer class was mostly educated at Oxford and Cambridge, he would very much over-estimate the quantity of bread and milk consumed in those ancient institutions. We have thought that these reflexions on the method of teaching the simplest of all the sciences might be useful to parents, were it only that we might convince them of the difficulty of their undertaking, as well as of its necessity. Most of the juvenile treatises on this subject rather tell what * Considerations on the Method of Teaching the Arithmetic of Whole Numbers to Children. Oct., 1832,—Jan., 1833. B to do than how to do it; it is only of very late years that such works have appeared as the Lessons on Number, reviewed in the Third Number of this Journal, in which the process is explained, as well as the result of it. We shall, in succeeding articles, make some observations on other branches of mathematics; but for the present we shall confine ourselves to the elementary parts of arithmetic only. It is very common notion that this subject is easy; that is, a child is called stupid who does not receive his first notions of number with facility. This, we are convinced, is a mistake. Were it otherwise, savage nations would acquire a numeration and a power of using it, at least proportional to their actual wants, which is not the case. Is the mind, by nature, nearer the use of its powers than the body? If not, let parents consider how many efforts are unsuccessfully made before a single articulate sound is produced, and how imperfectly it is done after all; and let them extend the same indulgence, and, if they will, the same admiration, to the rude essays of the thinking faculty, which they are so ready to bestow upon those of the speaking power. Unfortunately the two cases are not equally interesting. The first attempts of the infant in arms to pronounce 'papa' and ' mamma,' though as much like one language as another, are received with exultation as the promise of a future Demosthenes; but the subsequent discoveries of the little arithmetician, such as that six and four make thirteen, eight, seven, anything but ten, far from giving visions of the Lucasian or Savilian chairs, are considered tiresome, and are frequently rewarded by charges of stupidity or inattention. In the first case, the child is teaching himself by imitation, and always succeeds; in the second, it is the parent who instructs, and who does not always either succeed or deserve to succeed. Irritated or wearied by this failure, little manifestations of temper often take the place of the gentle tone with which the lesson commenced, by which the child, whose perception of such a change is very acute, is thoroughly cowed and discouraged, and left to believe that the fault was his own, when it really was that of his instructor. It is not at all unusual to begin by making the infant repeat the words one, two, three, &c. in succession, and this is called teaching him to count. Of course this has no more to do with the matter than it would have if one, two, three, &c. were abandoned, and chair, sofa, table, &c. substituted in their place. To most others a little modification of the above process appears preferable; they point their fingers to one object after another, pronouncing in succession the |