Facility and
accuracy in oral and written expression are developed through practice
rather than through precept. They are perfected through the conscious
and unconscious imitation of good models rather than through the
advanced study of technical grammar. Only as knowledge is put to work
is it really learned or assimilated.
5. Cleveland gives more time to mathematics than does the average
city. The content of courses in mathematics is to be determined by
human needs. A fundamental need of our scientific age is more accurate
quantitative thinking about our vocations, civic problems, taxation,
income, insurance, expenditures, public improvements, and the
multitude of other public and private problems involving quantities.
We need to think accurately and easily in quantities, proportions,
forms, and relationships. Arithmetic teaching, like the teaching
of penmanship, is for the purpose of providing tools to be used in
matters that lie beyond. The present course of study is of superior
character, providing for efficient elementary training and dispensing
with most of the things of little practical use. The greatest
improvement in the work is to be found in its further carrying over
into the other fields of school work and in applying it in other
classes as well as in the arithmetic class. In the advanced classes
mathematics should be differentiated according to the needs of
different pupils.
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