THE DOROTHY CRAIN SERIES
Ciphers
For the Little Folks
A Method of Teaching
The Greatest Work of Sir Francis Bacon
Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban
Designed to Stimulate Interest in Reading, Writing and Number Work,
by Cultivating the Use of an Observant Eye
With an
Appendix on the Origin, History and Designing of the Alphabet
By Helen Louise Ricketts
RIVERBANK LABORATORIES
EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT
Dorothy Crain, Director of Kindergarten
GENEVA, ILLINOIS
Copyright, 1916
GEORGE FABYAN
These lessons are presented as suggestions with the idea that the teacheror parent will adapt, lengthen, shorten, or remake, as the needs of thelittle folk demand. Their value will depend on the way in which they arebrought before the children.
The aim is not to impose on children adult knowledge and accomplishments,but to afford them experiences that on their own account appeal to them,and at the same time have educational value and significance.
Children should have a great deal of handwork; they do their best thinkingwhen they are planning something to do with their hands. Their attentionis much more easily focused upon something they are doing with their handsthan upon something which they hear or read. Building with the blocks,paper folding and cutting, painting and drawing, and what is known asconstructive work, are all means of self-expression.
An explanatory paragraph will accompany each lesson. In order that theworkings of the Biliteral Cipher, from which these lessons were derived,may be more readily understood, a short explanation will follow for theguidance of the teacher or parent, to whom it is left to choose the bestmethods of explaining the Cipher to the children, step by step.
The Biliteral Cipher devised by Francis Bacon and explained in detail inhis Advancement of Learning (see Spedding’s English edition of Bacon’sWorks, Vol. IV, pages 444-447) is based upon the mathematical fact thatthe transposition of two objects (blocks, letters, etc.) will yield 32dissimilar combinations, of which only 24 would be necessary to representall the letters in our alphabet (i and j, u and v being usedinterchangeably in the 16th Century). Lesson I of this series shows the 24combinations used by Bacon, and constitutes the “Code” or “Key.”
[Pg 4]By reference to Lesson I it will be seen that variations in the groupingof a’s and b’s, five at a time, are made to represent each letter ofthe alphabet, except that i and j and u and v are regarded asinterchangeable. In all the succeeding lessons, objects are chosen torepresent a or b, and the order or succession of their grouping, whencompared with the code (Lesson I), will determine the letter theyrepresent.
Words in a language being made up simply of combinations of letters, it isclear that as long as only two differences are available, words can bebuilt up by making the proper combinations according to the code. Anydifferences will do, and to this fact are due the possibilities for theexercise of the thinking powers, imagination, and skill on the part ofchildren in this work. Lesson VI, for example, combines elements ofinstruction and play in an interesting manner. The transmission of wordsand sentences can