Development of Mathematics in Secondary Schools of the United States

Abstract

The Latin grammar schools had inherited certain aristocratic characteristics that existed in England at the time the American colonies were settled; these characteristics exhibited themselves in the practice of selecting pupils according to the rank and social status of their parents. From the conditions incident to frontier life they had acquired certain other characteristics such as limited means, limited facilities, limited purposes, and limited opportunities, all of which were manifested in the narrow curriculum of the period. As the population of these early colonies increased through immigration and birth, old communities broke up and migration westward began. The new settlements established in the wilderness were founded by people who had not known the religious zeal and oppression of the old country. With this shifting of population new interests in shipping and commerce began to replace the old interests in religion and agriculture. Such social and commerical expansion gradually led to a demand for a more liberal and democratic form of education, which demand was met by the organization of the academy. This new institution, to a certain extent an offspring of Philistinism, “came in to serve the broader need represented by those who would enter occupational pursuits without going to college, as well as those planning to continue their education. It was, in effect, an expression of expanding democracy.”1