Suggestions on the Arithmetic Question

The National Committe on Mathematical Requirements served, through its report, to stimulate inquiry on the part of those who know something about the problem of mathematics in the secondary school. The commission appointed by the College Entrance Examination Hoard, through its report, confirmed the important findings of the National Committee, and did much to eliminate the obsolete material in the high-school curriculum and to substitute therefor a more modern type of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. It will take some time for schools and teachers to adjust the courses in mathematics to meet the recommendations of these bodies, to eliminate the over-drill, to cast out the useless part of the work in the elementary operations, and to realize that trigonometry is a part of algebra and that it can be made much simpler and more interesting than much of the drudgery (as the subject was commonly taught) that it replaces, but the leaven is working and the outcome will be on the right side. It takes time to develop the idea that we should seek quality instead of mere quantity, but our younger generation of teachers is coming rapidly to realize the significance of this idea in a subject, for example, like algebra. The reform would proceed more rapidly if it were not that nearly all of our current tests include a considerable amount of material that has been recommended for elimination by all who have given the subject serious thought. As Professor Upton has recently remarked in the Mathematics Teacher, schools often feel compelled to teach subjects that are obsolete, and possibly even to recognize forms that are incorrect, because of the carelessness shown in preparing many of these tests.