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HELEN. He knows the tens and units,

too.

EAST INDIAN. Now our numerals have been altered still more and many little CAIUS. Then you place the calculi on girls and boys all over the world are using the proper lines and count. them today.

ALBERT. What are the calculi?

PROGRESS. They are pebbles. Caius

used the Latin word.

Here is another little friend of mine. (Enter Japanese Girl.)

My dear, how do You count? JAPANESE GIRL. I use this abacus when

I count. My people have computed on it for hundreds of years.

HELEN. Some used their fingers, some used pebbles, and some this counting board.

HENRY. Fingers are the best. They are always on hand.

CURTAIN

EPISODE III.

Thousands of years ago men needed a notation.

PROGRESS. (To children.) You have been so very industrious that now I shall let you listen to a most interesting conversation.

(Enter West Arab, East Arab, and East Indian of ancient times.)

PROGRESS. Tell us about the origin of our written numbers.

GUPTA (ancient East Indian.) Indian.) The priests in the temple in India, where I lived, taught me how to write. One day they told me that they had first seen numerals cut in the walls of a where pilgrims often rested for the night. EAST ARAB. I lived in Bagdad in the eighth century. At that time our merchants, and writers on arithmetic were using the Hindoo notation for it was superior to the alphabetical which had been used previously. We used a zero. WEST ARAB. Our numerals are Hindoo, too, but they are not like yours. They came to us, the West Arabs, in the second century by way of Alexandria in Egypt. Then the zero had not been invented. As soon as we saw its great advantages, we borrowed it from you.

HENRY. They must be very old. PROGRESS. At least 2000 years.

CURTAIN

EPISODE IV.

The ancients were concerned over

areas.

PROGRESS. I am sure you would like to see some of the famous Greek mathematicians who lived before the Christian era. (Enter Thales and another Greek.) THALES. Do you know what happened today?

SECOND GREEK. O, you got the best of somebody.

THALES. Do not be so sure. A few days ago I was taking some salt on the backs of my mules over a stream. One of the mules slipped and splashed water over the salt. Finding the load easier as the wet salt dissolved, he rolled over in the water at the next crossing and got rid of it altogether. Today I put sponges on this mule and that made the load heavier when he again tried the trick he had used before.

SECOND GREEK. You are a shrewd man, Thales, but tell me about these propositions in geometry which you have proved.

THALES. I am now an old man. I have thought much and studied many years. These things I know to be true: The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal. A triangle is determined if its base and base angles be given. A circle is bisected by any diameter. Come with me and I will teach you all of these things. (Exeunt.)

PROGRESS. Here is the great Pythag

oras.

(Enter Pythagoras, soliloquizing.) PYTHAGORAS. I wonder how long I have yet to live. I was afraid to stay longer in Tarentum and even here I am in danger of some murderous hand. Would that I were again in Egypt. Well do I

remember those happy days. I suppose the Egyptian rope-stretchers are still hard at work laying their square corners for a temple with the three-four-five triangle. What strides I have made beyond that geometry.

Do I hear some one coming? (Paces the floor.) Just the wind, no doubt.

Why should I have enemies-I, who sacrificed a hecatomb to the Gods in celebration of my great discovery that the square on the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides?

Where are you of the brotherhood? May the Gods keep you from telling our proofs on the sum of the three angles of a triangle, and that the plane about a point is completely filled by six equilateral triangles, four squares or three regular hexagons.

(Looks around. Runs off the stage.) HENRY. Was he caught?

PROGRESS. Yes. I regret to say, he was foully murdered.

(Enter two Greeks.)

FIRST GREEK. I see you are studying Euclid's "Elements."

SECOND GREEK. Yes, and that reminds me that I heard a story about Euclid the other day. It seems that Ptolemy, who, as you know, founded the great library at Alexandria, asked him if geometry could be learned in an easier way than by studying the "Elements." Euclid answered, "There is no royal road to geometry."

FIRST GREEK. I know a story about him myself. A young man started to read geometry with Euclid. When he had

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A great and noble heritage have you given us, scholars of the past. Through your ceaseless efforts, age by age, we have acquired an arithmetical speed undreamed of in man's early days. To the Hindoos, who first fashioned our numerals, the Egyptians, who gave us the square corner, and to the Greeks to whom may be accredited most of our geometry. shall we forget you, Simon Stevinus, for we breathe a prayer of thanks. Neither the decimal has increased our accuracy tenfold. May the glory of Newton, star the past, shine upon us all our days. of the first magnitude in the heavens of Scholars of the future, see to it that you bring gifts as precious as these to lay at the feet of Mathematics.

CURTAIN

A RECENT MOVEMENT AMONG EXPERIMENTAL SCHOOLS

I

By VELORUS MARTZ,

Principal, Crest View Junior High School, Columbus*

NA recent survey of the activities of the experimental schools of the country the writer was impressed with the fact that there is a movement, common among progressive institutions, that is working fundamental changes in the subject-matter and method of our educational program. A large proportion of the schools coming under his notice are not to be classed as strictly experimental in the sense that they are impartially testing out some new theory or method. Rather as protagonists of an accepted doctrine they are seeking to establish its validity. As pioneers in somewhat new and untried fields, they have something to teach us by their success or failure. Schools of this class are numerous and varied, the majority of them being private institutions. However, a common principle may be discovered underlying their efforts. As a rule, they are protesting against the formalism of our traditional methods. They hold that a child has an inalienable right to live a child's life and therein freely to express his individuality. While a child he should play as a child, express himself as a child, and live as a child. Developing thus naturally he will, it is held, be best prepared to live the life of an adult when he becomes an adult. The ordinary school, in the view of these people, is attempting to teach children the things an adult should know. The result is the suppression of child life.

So widespread has this feeling become that we find several associations existing to advance the idea of freedom for the child in education. These organizations are affiliated with a number of schools which thus co-operate in the promotion of their educational programs. The Bureau

of Educational Experiments, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City, is such an organization. Its purpose is to promote the cause of "free education" by fostering experiments under classroom conditions and by disseminating information on experimental schools. It publishes a list of such schools and issues bulletins reporting the results of their work. The Fairhope Educational Foundation, 18 East Forty-first Street, New York City, is endeavoring to advance the idea of organic education as developed by Mrs. Johnson in her school at Fairhope, Alabama.

The Progressive Education League maintains headquarters at 426 Fifth Street, Northwest, Washington, D. C. It states its educational creed as follows: "The ability to apply knowledge, with intelligence and joy to the problems of every-day life should replace, to a large extent, expertness in passing examinations for book content alone; education more and more should use laboratory and shop methods which entail greater physical and mental freedom and allow greater opportunity for individual progress; in the training of teachers the study of human nature and child reactions should have as much emphasis as that given to methods of presenting facts." The league does not commit itself to any method or system in the attainment of these objectives. It maintains affiliations with a number of schools rather widely distributed over the country. It seeks to advance its cause through the publication of bulletins and the holding of annual conventions.

One of the outstanding features of this new movement in education is the rise of the infant or nursery school. If education

*Reprinted by permission from the Educational Research Bulletin of Ohio State University, October 1, 1924.

is not merely to train for adulthood, but to help the child to live a child's life, there is no reason for delaying school entrance until he is ready to begin the traditional school subjects. Consequently these new schools take children as soon as they are able to walk and speak a few words. Their object is not to relieve the home of the care of the child, but to encourage selfexpression and assist in adjustment to environment, vital factors in education that need not wait until the child has learned to read. A school of this type is the nursery school of the Merrill-Palmer School of Detroit. This school serves a dual purpose. It is a laboratory in home training and care of children for the older students of the Merrill-Palmer School and is conducting experiments in methods of training children of pre-school age. It is patterned after the nursery schools of England. At present it is doing valuable work in developing and standardizing mental and performance tests for young children. The play school has been another natural development of this movement. The basis upon which the play school is organized is the natural activity of the child and not the course of study. Miss Caroline Pratt has done much pioneer work in this field with her play school, now developed into the City and Country School, located at 165 West 12th Street, New York City. The play school differs from the Montessori method in striving for more freedom. The Montessori method "stacks the cards," as it were, on the child. It provides certain equipment with which only certain things can be done; a round block to fit a round hole, sandpaper forms to teach letters, etc. The aim is to teach certain ideas through the proper appeal to child nature. The object of the play school, on the other hand, is to let the child express himself. He is furnished toys and equipment with which he may do an infinite variety of things. The chief duty of the teacher is to keep hands off and see what he will do with them. The result may be a house, a boat, a railway

system, or an army. An artistic bent may disclose itself. The teacher observes and may encourage, but seldom interferes. The pressure of environment is relied upon largely to force adjustment. It is noticed that the child at first plays alone. Soon, however, he develops a desire to associate with his fellow pupils, and learns naturally the lessons of co-operation and social adjustment.

The next step is to relate the child to the world about him. This is done by taking him on trips about the city and allowing him to observe its activities, its street cars, its ships, its stores. This experience is reflected in his block constructions, in his reports of what he has seen, and in his attempts to draw or otherwise depict what has appealed to him. Thus the child may express himself in many ways before he learns to read and write.

The play school involves more attention to the physical and social needs of the child than has been given in the traditional school, and it is today the dominating factor among progressive schools attempting to train young children. The University of California has recently established a demonstration play school in connection with its summer session, for the benefit of teachers attending at that time of year.

The Organic School, established by Mrs. Johnson at Fairhope, Alabama, appears to the writer to be working along the same idea as the play school, but giving to it a slightly different interpretation. Mrs. Johnson holds that child nature unfolds in a determined order or sequence and that education should aid but not interfere with this development. At one time the cultivation of the physical powers may be the all important thing. Likewise, the social and spiritual nature of the child must receive attention in due order. Here again education is largely a matter of adjustment to environment. The child learns by doing rather than from books. The idea is to create a concrete situation, in the meeting of which the child is learning

to meet real life. He is not acquiring skills unrelated to his present needs. Mrs. Johnson freely admits that she is seeking to prolong childhood, not to shorten it. She believes that the child whose child-life is most fully developed will be the most fully developed adult. She conducts a summer school at Greenwich, Connecticut, in addition to the original one at Fairhope, and others are being established at different points over the country.

This new education attributes but little importance to the early acquirement of the school arts. These will come along in due time as the growing needs of the child require them. But after a while, about the time of the third grade, the question of a more formal education must be seriously faced. We here strike a problem as yet not so satisfactorily solved as that of the earlier years of training. The problem is to relate the traditional school subjects to child-life so that they will be recognized as meeting a present need and not have to be justified merely as preparation for future years. The plan of attack at this stage runs in the direction of the project method. As Miss Pratt states the policy of the City and Country School, "The program, in general, circles about some paramount activity or activities of each group. This, like the center of a web, draws all the other strands into relation with itself. History, geography, literature, all are woven to bear upon the central enterprise, which may be a newspaper, the making and selling of shop and clay products, or any one of several other essential activities which carry the whole group forward and bind them together for a common purpose. This, for the want of a better term, is called the functioning program. It implies growth, the conscious assembling and dispensing of information by the teacher, and the conscious, and also unconscious, assimilation by the children."

The Gregory School, at West Orange, New Jersey, and the Ethical Culture School of New York City, have done much worth-while work along the line of relating

school subjects to the life of the child of the intermediate grades. Dr. Meriam, of the Observation School of the University of Missouri, has developed a method and a curriculum for the same purpose. The plan employed is somewhat as follows: The child is brought into contact with the activities of life. He may be taken into stores, factories, or other places of merchandising and production, where he sees the world's work actually going forward and begins to understand how dependent it is upon the fundamental school subjects. Again, these activities are brought into the schoolroom. A newspaper is to be published, a store conducted, or a house built. At times the group may organize itself into a community with stores, factories, newspaper, postoffice, police force, and other officials. In such a situation a knowledge of reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography becomes essential to meeting the needs of the child's own life, and their teaching requires no further justification.

As we pass on into the upper grades and arrive at the secondary or preparatory school the underlying motive remains the same. School is still regarded as a place to live, not merely to prepare for life. The pupil is possessed of a physical and emotional nature whose nurture and development are as vital as is the intellectual. The school must present real situations in which the pupil is an active participant, not a passive observer. The effect has been more marked upon the physical equipment of the school and upon its method than upon the curriculum. The old subjects are still taught in a different manner and with different emphasis.

Among secondary schools of this type we again find the private school predominating. The Park School of Baltimore, Maryland, offers an example of the better class of such institutions. Here, as in many other places, we find extensive grounds, modern buildings and equipment, with shops, outdoor theatre, indoor and outdoor gymnasiums. Much atten

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