Excerpt from General Mathematics
The purpose of this book, as implied in the introduction, is as follows: to obtain a vital, modern scholarly course in introductory mathematics that may serve to give such careful training in quantitative thinking and expression as well-informed citizens of a democracy should possess. It is, of course, not asserted that this ideal has been attained. Our achievements are not the measure of our desires to improve the situation. There is still a very large "safety factor of dead wood" in this text. The material purposes to present such simple and significant principles of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, practical drawing, and statistics, along with a few elementary notions of other mathematical subjects, the whole involving numerous and rigorous applications of arithmetic, as the average man (more accurately the modal man) is likely to remember and to use. There is here an attempt to teach pupils things worth knowing and to discipline them rigorously in things worth doing.
The argument for a thorough reorganization need not be stated here in great detail. But it will be helpful to enumerate some of the major errors of secondary-mathematics instruction in current practice and to indicate briefly how this work attempts to improve the situation. The following serve to illustrate its purpose and program:
1. The conventional first-year algebra course is characterized by excessive formalism; and there is much drill work largely on nonessentials.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге General Mathematics (Classic Reprint)