Abraham Lincoln’s Cyphering Book and Ten other Extraordinary Cyphering Books
Abraham Lincoln’s Cyphering Book and Ten other Extraordinary Cyphering Books

Author: Nerida F. Ellerton

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-03-26

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 3319025023

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This well-illustrated book provides strong qualitative and comparative support for the main arguments developed by Nerida Ellerton and Ken Clements in their groundbreaking Rewriting this History of School Mathematics in North America 1607–1861: The Central Role of Cyphering Books. Eleven extraordinary handwritten school mathematics manuscripts are carefully analyzed—six were prepared entirely in Great Britain, four entirely in North America, and 1 partly in Great Britain and partly in North America. The earliest of the 11 cyphering books was prepared around 1630, and the latest in 1835. Seven of the manuscripts were arithmetic cyphering books; three were navigation cyphering books, and one was a mensuration/surveying manuscript. One of the cyphering books examined in this book was prepared, over the period 1819–1826, by a young Abraham Lincoln, when he was attending small one-teacher schools in remote Spencer County, Indiana. Chapter 6 in this book provides the first detailed analysis of young Abraham’s cyphering book—which is easily the oldest surviving Lincoln manuscript. Another cyphering book, this one prepared by William Beattie in 1835, could have been prepared as a special gift for the King of England. The analyses make clear the extent of the control which the cyphering tradition had over school mathematics in North America and Great Britain between 1630 and 1840. In their final chapter Ellerton and Clements identify six lessons from their research into the cyphering tradition which relate to present-day circumstances surrounding school mathematics. These lessons are concerned with sharp differences between intended, implemented and attained curricula, the remarkable value that many students placed upon their cyphering books, the ethnomathematical circumstances which surrounded the preparations of the extraordinary cyphering books, and qualitative differences between British and North American school mathematics.

Rewriting the History of School Mathematics in North America 1607-1861
Rewriting the History of School Mathematics in North America 1607-1861

Author: Nerida Ellerton

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-01-18

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9400726392

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The focus of this book is the fundamental influence of the cyphering tradition on mathematics education in North American colleges, schools, and apprenticeship training classes between 1607 and 1861. It is the first book on the history of North American mathematics education to be written from that perspective. The principal data source is a set of 207 handwritten cyphering books that have never previously been subjected to careful historical analysis.

Sailing School
Sailing School

Author: Margaret E. Schotte

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2019-07-30

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1421429543

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Hands-on science in the Age of Exploration. Winner of the John Lyman Book Award in Naval and Maritime Science and Technology by the North American Society for Oceanic History and the Leo Gershoy Prize by the American Historical Association Throughout the Age of Exploration, European maritime communities bent on colonial and commercial expansion embraced the complex mechanics of celestial navigation. They developed schools, textbooks, and instruments to teach the new mathematical techniques to sailors. As these experts debated the value of theory and practice, memory and mathematics, they created hybrid models that would have a lasting impact on applied science. In Sailing School, a richly illustrated comparative study of this transformative period, Margaret E. Schotte charts more than two hundred years of navigational history as she investigates how mariners solved the challenges of navigating beyond sight of land. She begins by outlining the influential sixteenth-century Iberian model for training and certifying nautical practitioners. She takes us into a Dutch bookshop stocked with maritime manuals and a French trigonometry lesson devoted to the idea that "navigation is nothing more than a right triangle." The story culminates at the close of the eighteenth century with a young British naval officer who managed to keep his damaged vessel afloat for two long months, thanks largely to lessons he learned as a keen student. This is the first study to trace the importance, for the navigator's art, of the world of print. Schotte interrogates a wide variety of archival records from six countries, including hundreds of published textbooks and never-before-studied manuscripts crafted by practitioners themselves. Ultimately, Sailing School helps us to rethink the relationship among maritime history, the Scientific Revolution, and the rise of print culture during a period of unparalleled innovation and global expansion.

Toward Mathematics for All
Toward Mathematics for All

Author: Nerida Ellerton

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-06-27

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 3030857247

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This book presents a history of mathematic between 1607 and 1865 in that part of mainland North America which is north of Mexico but excludes the present-day Canada and Alaska. Unlike most other histories of mathematics now available, the emphasis is on the gradual emergence of "mathematics for all" programs and associated changes in thinking which drove this emergence. The book takes account of changing ideas about intended, implemented and attained mathematics curricula for learners of all ages. It also pays attention to the mathematics itself, and to how it was taught and learned.