Ciphers For the Little Folks.

by Dorothy Crain.

INTRODUCTION

These lessons are presented as suggestions with the idea that the teacher or parent will adapt, lengthen, shorten, or remake, as the needs of the little folk demand. Their value will depend on the way in which they are brought 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 thinking when they are planning something to do with their hands. Their attention is much more easily focused upon something they are doing with their hands than upon something which they hear or read. Building with the blocks, paper folding and cutting, painting and drawing, and what is known as constructive work, are all means of self-expression.

An explanatory paragraph will accompany each lesson. In order that the workings of the Biliteral Cipher, from which these lessons were derived, may be more readily understood, a short explanation will follow for the guidance of the teacher or parent, to whom it is left to choose the best methods of explaining the Cipher to the children, step by step.

The Biliteral Cipher devised by Francis Bacon and explained in detail in his Advancement of Learning (see Spedding's English edition of Bacon's Works, Vol. IV, pages 444-447) is based upon the mathematical fact that the transposition of two objects (blocks, letters, etc.) will yield 32 dissimilar combinations, of which only 24 would be necessary to represent all the letters in our alphabet (_i_ and _j_, _u_ and _v_ being used interchangeably in the 16th Century). Lesson I of this series shows the 24 combinations used by Bacon, and const.i.tutes the "Code" or "Key."

By reference to Lesson I it will be seen that variations in the grouping of _a_'s and _b_'s, five at a time, are made to represent each letter of the alphabet, except that _i_ and _j_ and _u_ and _v_ are regarded as interchangeable. In all the succeeding lessons, objects are chosen to represent _a_ or _b_, and the order or succession of their grouping, when compared with the code (Lesson I), will determine the letter they represent.

Words in a language being made up simply of combinations of letters, it is clear that as long as only two differences are available, words can be built up by making the proper combinations according to the code. Any differences will do, and to this fact are due the possibilities for the exercise of the thinking powers, imagination, and skill on the part of children in this work. Lesson VI, for example, combines elements of instruction and play in an interesting manner. The transmission of words and sentences can be accomplished even without the use of objects, for two different motions of the fingers or hands will do; likewise two different sounds--in fact any differences perceptible to any of the five senses can be used. "Wig-wagging" as used by the U. S. Army Signal Service is based upon this Cipher. Thus many games can be planned which will have an educational value in training to a higher efficiency every faculty the child possesses.

The lessons have been arranged in a sequence according to their increasing order of complexity, leading up gradually to the presentation of the possibility of sending hidden messages in an open communication without arousing any suspicion as to the presence of anything secret. In Lesson XIV the phrase "Biliteral Cipher" is made to contain the hidden word "Key"

by the use of a capital letter for the _a_ form and a small letter for the _b_ form. Of course the differences between the _a_ form and the _b_ form can be made much less apparent than the differences between capital and small letters; in fact the differences can be made so small that they would be imperceptible to the casual observer, but it still would be possible to distinguish them. It is in this phase of the work that accuracy and care in the formation of letters may be taught, not only in script or handwriting, but also in printing, both of which are now fast becoming lost arts. Cipher writing, if properly taught, will give practice in penmanship that will be interesting and not onerous to children.

The adaptability of the Biliteral Cipher to the manifold uses to which it can be put makes its pedagogical possibilities far-reaching; and the field for the exercise of the faculties of both teacher and pupil, parent and child, is one of the broadest, most instructive and entertaining that has ever been opened to the little folks of primary age.

Any further information which the instructor may care to secure will be furnished on application to the Riverbank Laboratories.

Dorothy Crain

TRAINING THE EYE TO SEE

That the faculty of sight needs training will be admitted by every reasonable person, but how best to give the eye this advantage is a question which has never been settled. An English hunter, the author of a book on Norway, gives some interesting hints upon the matter:

The reason that the different characteristics of tracks are not observed by the untrained eye is not because they are so very small as to be invisible, but because they are--to that eye--so inconspicuous as to escape notice. In the same way the townsman will stare straight at a grouse in the heather, or a trout poised above the gravel in the brook, and will not see them; not because they are too small, but because he does not know what they look like in those positions. He does not know, in fact, what he is looking for, and a magnifying gla.s.s would in no wise help him. To the man who does not know what to look for, the lens may be a hindrance, because it alters the proportions to which his mind is accustomed, and still more because its field is too limited.--Youth's Companion.

LESSON I

This lesson is intended to teach the code or key. Attention is called to the mathematical regularity of its construction, which will enable the teacher to demonstrate it in a very simple manner. First write the column of numbers from 1 to 24. Then opposite number 1 place five red circles in a row. Under the last one in this row, and on a line with number 2 place a blue circle, and continue alternating red and blue down the column. Then under the 4th red circle in the 1st row place another red one, then two blue ones, alternating 2 reds with 2 blues down the column. In the 3rd column the reds and blues alternate in sets of four; in the 2nd column, in sets of eight, and in the 1st column, in sets of 16. Since only 24 combinations are necessary, the last eight of the possible 32 have been omitted. Now opposite these 24 combinations place the letters of the alphabet in regular order, remembering that I and J, U and V are used interchangeably.

To facilitate the use of the code the red and the blue circles may be designated by small _a_ and small _b_ respectively. The right hand section of this lesson gives the code worked out on this plan and makes future reference easy. In all the succeeding lessons one form (whether it be blocks, beads, yarn or what not) will be called the _a_ form, and the other will be called the _b_ form. On account of the nature of the code, the _a_ forms always predominate; and in getting together materials for this work, the teacher should be guided accordingly.

LESSON II

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Short lines represent the _a_ form, long lines, the _b_ form. The cipher word is "the." Various forms of sewing cards, or yarns of different colors may be used.

LESSON III

[Ill.u.s.tration]

In this weaving mat the light squares represent the _a_ form, the dark ones, the _b_ form. The arrow marks the starting point, and the reading proceeds from left to right in each line. The cipher message is "Mary had a little lamb." Any sentence containing the requisite number of letters can be inserted on the same principle.

LESSON IV

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This lesson embodies what may be designated as a symbolic cipher design.

This design conveys the idea of the setting sun, and hence the cipher word contained within is "sunset." Red sticks represent the _b_ form, orange sticks, the _a_ form. The arrow marks the starting point, and the reading proceeds in a clockwise direction.

LESSON V

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This is another symbolic cipher design picturing "Humpty-Dumpty." The blue squares represent the _a_ form, the red squares the _b_ form. The cipher message is "sat on a wall." The blank squares can be filled by colored crayons or blocks, and the children can thus practice the building of the message by referring to the code in Lesson I.

LESSON VI

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Another symbolic cipher design in which the hens represent the _b_ form, the chicks the _a_ form. The cipher word is "egg," reading from left to right.

This sort of symbolic cipher designing is susceptible of endless variation, and gives a hint of the possibility of drawing cipher pictures.

A sufficient supply is furnished so that when cut out, the hens and chicks may be utilized to spell out various words under the direction of the teacher.

LESSON VII--THE TIME-TEACHING CLOCK

In this clock the movable colored dots indicating the minutes are used to spell out the time in cipher. In the working cards to be provided for the child the colored dots are to be inserted in the holes made for the purpose around the face of the clock. There being sixty dots, any phrase expressive of time not exceeding twelve letters in length (that is, twelve times five dots for each letter equals 60) is available for indicating the time in cipher. That is to say, any phrase such as "half-past ten,"

"nine-thirty," etc., can be indicated on the clock by using five times as many dots as there are letters in the phrase selected. Should there be less than twelve letters in the phrase, the holes remaining are to be left blank.

This lesson is extremely flexible in respect to the many combinations which it makes possible. The teacher or parent should bear in mind that the most effective use of the clock is to be attained by first choosing a phrase designating some time of the day which is significant in the daily experience of the child--such as the opening or closing hour of school, the play hour, the dinner hour, or "bed-time." This phrase is converted into cipher by having the child place the dots representing the letters of the phrase, beginning at the figure twelve, around the clock face. After this has been done the child should be asked to "decipher" the phrase by naming the letter which each group of five dots stands for. When this is accomplished, the ability to read the time becomes an unconscious achievement, since the hands of the clock are then placed by the parent or teacher, or by the child under her direction, in the proper position to indicate the deciphered phrase. If, for example, the phrase "half-past nine" is selected and the child has extracted this from the colored dot combination, the hands of the clock are moved to nine-thirty. The child, with the phrase fresh in his mind, learns from this the position of the hands of the clock representing the time, since the mental image of the clock face with the hands in the required position establishes an a.s.sociation which becomes indelibly impressed on the child's mind.

The method here described is the best for young children. With children of more advanced age and greater ability to use their own minds, the reverse practice may be followed. The teacher may name the phrase designating the time, and direct the child to put in place the colored dots representing the letters of the phrase by referring for each letter to the code. This requires an intelligence of a higher order than the method first described.