The Teaching of Mathematics to Boys whose Chief Interests are Non-Mathematical

Extract

In the Report of the Committee of this Association published a year ago, it was asserted that a boy’s education “should enable him not only to apply Mathematics to practical affairs, but also to have some appreciation of the greater problems of the world, the solution of which depends on Mathematics and Science….” Again, “the material side of modern civilisation stands on a foundation of Applied Mathematics. This statement will not be controverted by anyone familiar with the work of modern scientists and engineers and with the part played by Mathematics in their achievements…. The modern man, therefore, should have at least some conception of the means by which these results, so vital to him, are obtained.” We have to give to our boys a training in logical accuracy, a demonstration of the beauty and interest of mathematical ideas and methods in themselves, and in the words which I have quoted, “some appreciation of those problems of the world, the solution of which depends on Mathematics and Science.” “The majority of boys will not make any extensive or profound use of Mathematics in after life … but they can be taught to realise the tremendous potentialities of the study whose elements they are commencing…. A public must be created able to realise what Science and Mathematics are doing for the world and to form some general conception of the means employed.”