“The Teaching of Algebra in Sixth Forms”

Extract

It is just on twenty years since I was first permitted to air in public some of my views on school algebra. That talk, in 1937, was officially part of a British Association discussion, but since the other speakers were yourself, Mr. President, Professor Broadbent and Mr. G. L. Parsons, with Professor Neville in the chair, it was quite a Mathematical Association family party. That was also the occasion of my becoming well acquainted with Alan Robson, who during the intervening years did so much, by his splendid text-books and by the influence of his pupils, to bring new ideas into school mathematics, and particularly into school algebra. It was a great pleasure to meet and correspond with him after so long an interval, during the years in which the Report that we are to discuss to-day was in preparation. His sudden death at the very time when the Report was first presented to the Teaching Committee of the Association was a most sad and unexpected blow. His thoughts had been occupied a great deal with it after his retirement, and it owes to him not only the chapters for which he was mainly responsible, but innumerable improvements at all the points that his sharp critical eye had lighted upon.