Ciphers for the Little Folks

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 constitutes 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 t