A Letter Worth Your While to Read.
By David Paulson
Chicago, Ill., Feb. 6, 1901.
PROF. E. A. SUTHERLAND,
Battle Creek, Mich. Dear Brother: I am glad the Lord put it into your heart to produce the "Mental Arithmetic for the Home and School." The little girl who is living with us studies it with delight, so I have had some opportunity to investigate it. The old-fashioned way of teaching arithmetic, and grammar, too, for that matter, has always seemed to me to be a wicked waste of mental energy. Studying meaningless sentences and phrases in order to learn grammar, or simply thrashing over abstract numbers in order to "understand" arithmetic, is a burden that neither we nor our fathers should ever have had to bear. I observe in your arithmetic that on almost every page there is some useful and fascinating truth, such as children are curious to learn, and which they will acquire as a result of having studied that lesson. How few grown-up persons really have any definite conception of what part of their bread is starch and what part is gluten; but the child who studies your arithmetic will learn this early in its career, and will learn NONE THE LESS arithmetic at the same time. Your effort is so positive in the right direction that it seems to me it can not fail to receive the indorsement of all lovers of a BROAD and GENUINE education. Yours in the Master's work,
DAVID PAULSON. If you wish your child to have the right training in arithmetic, order at once, a copy of the “Mental Arithmetic” of—
Your Tract Society; the Review and Herald Pub. Co., Battle Creek, Mich.; or the Pacific Press Pub. Co., Oakland, Cal.