will reply that they go to school to learn arithmetic, grammar, geography,
and history. Asked what their big purpose is in teaching, probably three
out of five teachers will answer that they are actuated by a desire to
cause their pupils to know arithmetic, grammar, geography, and history.
One of the other five teachers may echo something out of her past
accumulations to the effect that her work is the training for citizenship,
and the fifth will say quite frankly that she is groping about, all the
while, searching for the answer to that very question. It would be futile
to ask the children why they desire knowledge of these subjects and there
might be hazard in propounding the same question to the three teachers.
They teach arithmetic because it is in the course of study; it is in the
course of study because the superintendent put it there; and the
superintendent put it there because some other superintendent has it in
his course of study.

Now arithmetic may, in reality, be one of the best things a child can
study; but the child takes it because the teacher prescribes it, and the
teacher takes it on faith because the superintendent takes it on faith and
she cannot go counter to the dictum of the superintendent. Besides, it is
far easier to teach arithmetic than it would be to challenge the right of
this subject to a place in the course of study. To most people, including
many teachers, arithmetic is but a habit of thinking. They have been
contracting this habit through all the years since the beginning of their
school experience, until now it seems as inevitable as any other habitual
affair. It is quite as much a habit of their thinking as eating, sleeping,
or walking. If there were no arithmetic, they argue subconsciously, there
could be no school; for arithmetic and school are synonymous. Again, let
it be said that there is no thought here of inveighing against arithmetic
or any other subject of the curriculum. Not arithmetic in itself, but the
arithmetic habit constitutes the incubus, the evil spirit that needs to be