Engineering Studies and Secondary Education: Descriptive Geometry in the Netherlands (1820–1960)

Abstract

Descriptive geometry was mentioned in a plan for lessons for the first time in the Netherlands in 1819, at the School for Artillery and Military Engineers in Delft. The teacher was Isaac Schmidt, who in 1821 published a translation of Essais de geometrie by Lacroix. In 1828 the school was moved to Breda and at the same time became the Royal Military Academy, with an updated and more demanding curriculum, for military and some civilian (non-military) engineers. In 1842 the Royal Academy, for civilian engineers only, was established in Delft. In 1840–1841 Hendrik Strootman , teacher at the Royal Military Academy, published the first original Dutch textbook on descriptive geometry; his colleague Jacob Badon Ghyben published a textbook in 1858. The books by these two authors were widely used until the twentieth century, at the Royal Military Academy, at the Royal Academy and also in some secondary schools.