e, up to date, and which, under the stupid management
of Amos Waughops and the over-wrought Grube methods of Miss Stone, had
floored him in every tussle he had had with it, now grew tractable and
docile, a creature subservient to his will and quick to do his bidding,
unhesitatingly.

And what wonder, when Amy taught him this early work in numbers by use
of his memory rather than his reason; using a faculty that is strong at
this period of life, rather than one which has hardly begun to sprout?

Did you ever think of that, dear devotee at the shrine of Grube, or
Brother Harris, or all the rest of the train who insist that a child's
reason should "develop" largely before he has finished the first decade
of his existence?

These wise ones lay down a law (take up almost any printed course of
study, nowadays, and you will find it all spread out in the first and
second years' work) that every number must be mastered, in all its
possible arrangements and combinations, from the very first time it is
taken up. Thus, one must be considered in all its possible
correlations to all the universe, and the Almighty Himself, before two
can be touched! So, as soon as the youth strikes a simple unit that
ought to come to him like an old friend, he is straightway packed off
to the ends of the earth with the digit and made to stand it up
alongside of all manner of things, in the heavens above and, the earth
beneath, and even in the waters under the earth. The little fellow
tramps, and trudges, and compares, and contrasts, and divides, and
combines, and eliminates, and expels, and extracts, and subtracts, and
retracts, and contracts, and what not, until finally, he gets all mixed
up and concludes that he never can know anything about it at all, and
the dear old "one," that came to him at first as such a simple thing,
is so tangled up with all creation that he gives it up as an entirely
unknown and unknowable quantity, and begins to guess at it and when he
comes to that point, look out! He has taken the first step in
recklessness, and has begun his initial work as a liar!

You don't believe this? Then sit down to the following, which I clip
from the "second year's work" in a "course of study" that lies before
me:

"Learn to count to 100, forward and back, by 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's,
6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's, beginning to count from 0, and also from each
digit, respectively, up to the one used continuously, in each case."

Just buckl