MATHEMATICS

"We take strong ground when we appeal to the beauty and truth of Mathematics; that, as Ruskin points out~, two and two make four and cannot conceivably make five, is an inevitable law. It is a great thing to be brought into the presence of a law, of a whole system of laws, that exist without our concurrence, -- that two straight lines cannot enclose a space is a fact which we can perceive, state, and act upon but cannot in any wise alter, should give to children the sense of limitation which is wholesome for all of us...

The chief value of arithmetic, like that of the higher mathematics, lies in the
training it affords the reasoning powers,and in the habits of insight, readiness, accuracy, intellectual truthfulness it engenders....

[A] child who does not know what rule to apply to a simple problem within his grasp, has been ill taught from the first, although he may produce slatefuls of quite right sums in multiplication or long division." Charlotte Mason

A Book Review: Teaching Textbooks