An Earlier Place for the Calculus in the Curriculum

Abstract

The history of the mathematical curriculum is an interesting study. In colonial Harvard and Yale, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry were college disciplines; Latin and Greek were required for entrance; science had little place. At present, algebra and geometry are high school studies; Latin and Greek are often begun in college; the natural and social sciences are taken from high school freshman to college senior classes. A hundred years ago secondary school mathematics meant chiefly arithmetic, including such difficult topics as alligation, continued fractions, and circulating decimals. It was later realized that the student would gain more practical values and experience greater intellectual pleasure by omitting the more difficult portions of arithmetic, and in their place take the simpler parts of algebra and geometry; the new curriculum harmonized better with the student's capacity, adapted itself better to his experience, and formed a better basis for the courses in science that began to make their appearance in the college curriculum.