Practice makes perfect

In truth I often find that the best method of learning, for me, is repeated practice or study of a large number of examples. If I attempt to start from first principles, all too often I start to argue with, not from, the assumptions, spluttering But, but, but

When I was about 7 I somehow acquired a treasure. I think it may have come from my maternal G'ma & may have belonged to my grandfather

It was a fat book with a crumply green rexine-type of cover. Proudly stamped on the spine, in gold letters SCHOOL ARITHMETIC. It was published in 1903. So romantic

It contained page after page of sums or problems to be solved. Mostly these were all too recognisable from my 1950s schoolbooks. The method of multiplying by casting out 9s was new to me though. As was the method of finding square roots - we had tables for that. There was even a method for finding cube roots, though if I remember rightly, it was, at best, approximate

I loved that book

A lad of the brainier kind

Had erogenous zones in the mind

He loved the sensations

Of solving equations

(Of course in the end he went blind)

Hymie Sneak