Teaching Apparatus, Kanwille Educational Radial Device

This instrument consists of a cardboard disc with a second disc rotating atop it, held together by a joint at the center. Close to the rim is a circle of drawings of common objects such as an apple, a bird, a cat, a dog, an eagle, a fish and so forth alphabetically to a zebra. Drawings of fourteen additional objects complete the decoration of the rim. Immediately inside this ring of pictures is a ring of capital and small letters that corresponds to the first letter in the spelling of the pictured objects. For example," A a" is next to the drawing of the apple. Inside this ring is a ring of simple multiplication problems, starting with 1 x 1. In side this is ring of fractions, simple whole numbers, and simple algebraic signs (+, -, X, =, etc.). The upper disc also has three holes in it that line up radially. Rotating this hole so that the outmost segment spells out the name of an object (as BIRD bird), the middle window shows the result of the multiplication problem next to the drawing (for the bird, the problem is 1 x 2, so the answer shown is 2) and the innermost window spells out the fraction, number or symbol (for the bird drawing, the fraction shown is 1/8 and the window reveals the phrase one eighth).

Compare this instrument to U.S. Patent 1,578,708, for a game device, issued to Gene G. Beckhardt of Newark, New Jersey, on March 30, 1926. The patented object was designed for purposes ranging from education to fortunetelling. It had a spinning pointer at the center.

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