Abstract
I WILL not deny that some reformers desire to abolish Euclid and establish another sequence of propositions in abstract geometry for schoolboys; but if Prof. Bryan reads, the reviews which he cites more carefully, he will see that the reform current is very strong in quite another direction, and that his long-held apprehension is altogether baseless. I think that I apprehend the idea underlying the efforts of the majority of the reformers. It is the very old idea that the average English boy may be educated through the doing of things rather than through abstract reasoning. If abstract geometry is to be retained as a school subject, it can only in the future, as in the past, do harm to 98 per cent, of the boys; we say, drop it altogether in schools, and think of it only in connection with the universities. Two per cent. of schoolboys take to abstract reasoning as ducks take to water, and they ought not to be discouraged from the study of Euclid, but they and all the other boys ought to study geometry experimentally, logic entering into the study just as it enters into other parts of experimental physics. If the best modern books have a fault, it lies in the absurd assumption that an experimental sequence ought to have some connection with the Euclidean sequence.
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PERRY, J. Reform in School Geometry. Nature 68, 7 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/068007c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/068007c0
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