Fantastic, Please post more of these gems for our reflection.

Ed Wall

At 12:56 AM -0500 11/12/00, Alexander Bogomolny wrote:

>What do you know? I have just purchased a 3
>volume set of selected works of J. H. Pestalozzi - in Russian. >The first volume starts with a diary he kept of his son's >education. Following is my attempt at a literal translation of
>a couple of paragraphs on the 3rd page of the
>diary:
>
>"Explaining to him the true significance of the first numbers
>I tried to confer some definiteness on those words that
>he learned by heart without understanding their real meaning.
>From this example, the least capable person might verify how
>big an obstacle for grasping the truth is the habit of learning
>words not related to valid properties of things. The habit of
>not thinking of how in essense the numbers are different that >are assigned number words was evident and hindered his >understanding. 7, 8, 9, and 1 were for him much the same as 3, >5, and 17, and I could not remove the consequences of that habit >of not thinking.
>
>"Why have I done such a stupid thing, teaching him ahead of time
>the words so important for grasping the truth without >simultaneously taking care of making more precise the underlying >notions while uttering the first number words? How natural would >have it been not to teach him to say _three_ until he recognized >correctly 2 in all things shown to him. How naturally would have >he learned to count, and how much have I swayed in my haste from >the nature's ways! Oh, you, the truths, so important for the >wisdom and virtue, please teach me being cautious!"
>
>(Written in 1774.)
>
>All the best,
>Alexander Bogomolny