Jump to content

Page:Preparation of the Child for Science.djvu/74

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
70
PEEPARATION FOR SCIENCE

From the time when an infant begins to stroke the cat, to smell flowers, and to handle a spoon, have geometric solids as ornaments or toys, so that the senses of sight and touch may actually develop in contact with true type-form.

Next, the training of associated ideas. When you purchase type-forms, have the correct names written on each, and take care to call each by its name, so that the children may grow up with well-formed groups of associated ideas clustered round the words which mathematical teachers will use. Be as careful as possible not to misuse mathematical terminology in daily talk; either use it accurately or not at all. For instance, do not talk about the 'centre' of a long table, nor say 'ellipse' when you mean the oval suggested by two intersecting circles.

Then comes the training of the executive faculty. When the child can handle a pencil firmly and has outgrown the stage of mere scrawling, when he begins brush-drawing of flowers, or the drawing in pencil of boats and houses, give the hand also some training in the production of type-forms and the use of geometric tools. A violin, by the fact of being played on repeatedly, ripens and mellows into fitness for making music, because a relation is gradually established between the wood and