Arithmétique populaire et arithmétique savante. Apprentissages et enseignement à la fin du XVIlIe siècle

Abstract

In response to the increasing demand for education and with the backing of the governmental authorities, new types of schools were founded in Italy in the late 18th and early 19th century. These schools, which were open to everybody, including the poor, taught reading, writing and arithmetic. The aim of the present study is to determine how numeracy changed and became widespread and how it influenced intellectual work. The study examines the techniques and methods used by rural people, who were stili largely il/iterate, to leam to calculate. Also to be kept in mind are the problems for both teachers and students that derived from the introduction of numeracy into the curriculum.