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 needed for construction or in real life.

There are but few true number games, but dominoes and card games introduce the number groups.  In “Old maid” the children pair the groups and so learn to recognise them; in dominoes they use this knowledge, while “Snap” involves quick recognition.  Any one can make up a game in which scoring is necessary.  Ninepins or skittles is a number game, and one can score by using number groups, or by fetching counters, shells, beads, etc.,