Lessons in Life

We are never too old to learn a lesson in life. Never too set in our ways that we can't be taught or retaught .
This morning, house empty, fiddle music playing on the stereo. Book in hand. Cold fresh milk in my glass at my side. Gray clouds making the room a bit dark, a candle is just right to make the room glow in homey warmth.
I pulled out two books instead of one, the extra book an old arithmetic book. I leafed through the old pages, well worn from the hands of many school children of days gone by. Copyright 1898. Its a 5th grade book and I am shocked at the level of "mental math" in this book. How much smarter the children were then ! I struggled with the problems set forth and I was a product of a 4 room school house, 8 grades. Two grades to a room. I had a pretty good old fashioned education. But this book took me aback with the level of instruction.
Here is one problem for oral math from the book......
Find the number of square feet of boards needed to board and roof the house....
8. for a house 90 ft by 60 ft with 24 ft posts. The roof has a 1/2 pitch and the rafters are 36 ft long.
this is a 5th grade problem.... and it occurred to me that this lesson was to help the young men learn to build their own house some day. Practical arithmetic. Life lessons. There were more questions in the oral section about yardage and pounds of butter with fractions.
Arithmetic for life. We have lost something, haven't we ? Made me realize how lazy we have let our brains become. I sat down with paper and pencil and did some good old arithmetic today..... still in school it seems.
Think from now on I will add in my head what I put in the grocery cart and keep up with my mental math !