w
everything mentioned.

It is not only how children learn to read that is important: even more
so is what they read. Much unintelligent reading in later life is due to
the reading primer in which there was nothing to understand. Children
should read books, as adults do, to get something out of them. The time
often wasted in teaching reading too soon would be far better employed
in cultivating a taste for good reading by telling or reading to the
children good stories and verses.[32]

[Footnote 32: It is difficult to find easy material that is worth giving
to intelligent children, and we have been glad to find Brown's _Young
Artists' Readers_, Series A.]

A revolution is going on just now in the method of teaching writing. It
is now generally recognised that much time and effort have been wasted
in teaching children to join letters which are easier to read unjoined.

A very interesting article appeared in the Fielden School Demonstration
Record No. II., and Mr. Graily Hewitt has brought the subject of writing
as it was done before copperplate was invented very much to the fore.
The Child Study Society has published a little monograph on the subject
giving the experience of different teachers and specimens of the
writing.

Little Marjorie Fleming was a voracious reader with a remarkable
capacity for writing. Her spelling was unconventional at times, but
there was never any doubt about her meaning. She expressed herself
strongly on many subjects, and one of these was arithmetic. "I am now
going to tell you the horrible and wretched plaege (plague) that my
multiplication gives me you cant conceive it the most Devilish thing is
8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itself cant endure." Yet "if
you speak with the tongues of men and angels and make not mention of
arithmetic it profiteth you nothing," says Miss Wiggin.

There are a few little children who are really fond of number work.
There are not many of them, and they would probably learn more if they
were left to themselves. There are even a few mathematical geniuses who
hardly want teaching, but who are worthy of being taught by a Professor
of Mathematics, always supposing that he is worthy of them. But the
majority of children would probably be farther advanced at ten or twelve
if they had no teaching till they were seven. They ought to learn
through actual number games, through keeping score for other games, and
through any kind of calculation that is neede