Excerpt from The Teaching and History of Mathematics in the United States
On the study of mathematics in elementary schools of the American colonies but little can be said. In early colonial days schools did not exist except in towns and in the more densely settled districts; and oven where schools were kept, the study of mathematics was often not pursued at all, or consisted simply in learning to count and to perform the fundamental operations with integral numbers. Thus, in Hampstead, N. H., in 1750, it was voted "to hire a school-master for six mouths in ye summer season to teach ye children to read and write." Arithmetic had not yet been introduced there. As late as the beginning of this century there were schools in country districts in which arithmetic was not taught at all. Bronson Alcott, the prominent educator, born in Massachusetts in 1799, in describing the schools of his boyhood, says: "Until within a few years no studies have been permitted in the day school but spelling, reading, and writing. Arithmetic was taught by a few instructors one or two evenings in a week. But in spite of the most determined opposition arithmetic is now permitted in the day school." This was in Massachusetts at the beginning of this century.
In secondary schools, "ciphering" was taught during colonial times, which consisted generally in drilling students in the manipulation of integral numbers. He was an exceptional teacher who possessed a fair knowledge of "fractions" and the "rule of three," and if some pupil of rare genius managed to master fractions, or even pass beyond the "rule of three," then he was judged a finished mathematician.
The best teachers of those days were college students or college graduates who engaged in teaching as a stepping-stone to something better. An example of this class of teachers was John Adams, afterwards President of the United States. Immediately after graduating at Harvard and before entering upon the study of law, he presided, for a few years, over the grammar school at Worcester.
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