The Teaching of Arithmetic Author:David Eugene Smith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III WHAT ARITHMETIC SHOULD INCLUDE If we look upon arithmetic only with a view to its utilitarian value, to its power to fit us for the computations ... more »that the average person needs to perform or know about in daily life, the range of subject matter is not great. Addition, particularly of money, but not involving very large or numerous amounts, is probably the most important topic. Very likely the making of change, one of the forms of subtraction, is next in frequency of use. Perhaps, for it is difficult to say with certainty, the simple fractions £ and | are next in line of relative importance, including of a sum of money, of a length or weight, and so on. Then may come easy multiplicati0ns, to find the cost of 5 pounds of sugar, or of 16 yards of cl0th, given the price per pound or yard. A few of the most c0mmonly used measures and their relations must then be known, as that 12 inches equal 1 foot and 16 ounces equal 1 pound. Given this equipment, the average run of humanity w0uld be able to get along fairly well. But beyond this there lies a second field of work that every one may need, that a large minority will need, and that we should all at least know s0mething about. This field includes all four fundamental 0perations with integers, with simple common fractions (say with denominators of one or two figures), with decimal fracti0ns at least to hundredths, and with compound numbers of at least two denominations; the common business cases of percentage, and their applications; the common problems of business, all of which are applications of the operationsabove mentioned; and a little knowledge of ratio and proportion, chiefly for understanding the meaning of these terms. From the standpoint of business needs this equipment would answer the purposes of nearly every ...« less