The Teaching of Geometry

The Teaching of Geometry.

by David Eugene Smith.

PREFACE

A book upon the teaching of geometry may be planned in divers ways. It may be written to exploit a new theory of geometry, or a new method of presenting the science as we already have it. On the other hand, it may be ultraconservative, making a plea for the ancient teaching and the ancient geometry. It may be prepared for the purpose of setting forth the work as it now is, or with the tempting but dangerous idea of prophecy. It may appeal to the iconoclast by its spirit of destruction, or to the disciples of _laissez faire_ by its spirit of conserving what the past has bequeathed. It may be written for the few who always lead, or think they lead, or for the many who are ranked by the few as followers. And in view of these varied pathways into the joint domain of geometry and education, a writer may well afford to pause before he sets his pen to paper, and to decide with care the route that he will take.

At present in America we have a fairly well-defined body of matter in geometry, and this occupies a fairly well-defined place in the curriculum. There are not wanting many earnest teachers who would change both the matter and the place in a very radical fashion. There are not wanting others, also many in number, who are content with things as they find them. But by far the largest part of the teaching body is of a mind to welcome the natural and gradual evolution of geometry toward better things, contributing to this evolution as much as it can, glad to know the best that others have to offer, receptive of ideas that make for better teaching, but out of sympathy with either the extreme of revolution or the extreme of stagnation.

It is for this larger cla.s.s, the great body of progressive teachers, that this book is written. It stands for vitalizing geometry in every legitimate way; for improving the subject matter in such manner as not to destroy the pupil's interest; for so teaching geometry as to make it appeal to pupils as strongly as any other subject in the curriculum; but for the recognition of geometry for geometry's sake and not for the sake of a fancied utility that hardly exists. Expressing full appreciation of the desirability of establishing a motive for all studies, so as to have the work proceed with interest and vigor, it does not hesitate to express doubt as to certain motives that have been exploited, nor to stand for such a genuine, thought-compelling development of the science as is in harmony with the mental powers of the pupils in the American high school.

For this cla.s.s of teachers the author hopes that the book will prove of service, and that through its perusal they will come to admire the subject more and more, and to teach it with greater interest. It offers no panacea, it champions no single method, but it seeks to set forth plainly the reasons for teaching a geometry of the kind that we have inherited, and for hoping for a gradual but definite improvement in the science and in the methods of its presentation.

DAVID EUGENE SMITH

CHAPTER I

CERTAIN QUESTIONS NOW AT ISSUE

It is commonly said at the present time that the opening of the twentieth century is a period of unusual advancement in all that has to do with the school. It would be pleasant to feel that we are living in such an age, but it is doubtful if the future historian of education will find this to be the case, or that biographers will rank the leaders of our generation relatively as high as many who have pa.s.sed away, or that any great movements of the present will be found that measure up to certain ones that the world now recognizes as epoch-making. Every generation since the invention of printing has been a period of agitation in educational matters, but out of all the noise and self-a.s.sertion, out of all the pretense of the chronic revolutionist, out of all the sham that leads to dogmatism, so little is remembered that we are apt to feel that the past had no problems and was content simply to accept its inheritance. In one sense it is not a misfortune thus to be blinded by the dust of present agitation and to be deafened by the noisy clamor of the agitator, since it stirs us to action at finding ourselves in the midst of the skirmish; but in another sense it is detrimental to our progress, since we thereby tend to lose the idea of perspective, and the coin comes to appear to our vision as large as the moon.

In considering a question like the teaching of geometry, we at once find ourselves in the midst of a skirmish of this nature. If we join thoughtlessly in the noise, we may easily persuade ourselves that we are waging a mighty battle, fighting for some stupendous principle, doing deeds of great valor and of personal sacrifice. If, on the other hand, we stand aloof and think of the present movement as merely a chronic effervescence, fostered by the professional educator at the expense of the practical teacher, we are equally shortsighted. Sir Conan Doyle expressed this sentiment most delightfully in these words:

The dead are such good company that one may come to think too little of the living. It is a real and pressing danger with many of us that we should never find our own thoughts and our own souls, but be ever obsessed by the dead.

In every generation it behooves the open-minded, earnest, progressive teacher to seek for the best in the way of improvement, to endeavor to sift the few grains of gold out of the common dust, to weigh the values of proposed reforms, and to put forth his efforts to know and to use the best that the science of education has to offer. This has been the att.i.tude of mind of the real leaders in the school life of the past, and it will be that of the leaders of the future.

With these remarks to guide us, it is now proposed to take up the issues of the present day in the teaching of geometry, in order that we may consider them calmly and dispa.s.sionately, and may see where the opportunities for improvement lie.

At the present time, in the educational circles of the United States, questions of the following type are causing the chief discussion among teachers of geometry:

1. Shall geometry continue to be taught as an application of logic, or shall it be treated solely with reference to its applications?

2. If the latter is the purpose in view, shall the propositions of geometry be limited to those that offer an opportunity for real application, thus contracting the whole subject to very narrow dimensions?

3. Shall a subject called geometry be extended over several years, as is the case in Europe,[1] or shall the name be applied only to serious demonstrative geometry[2] as given in the second year of the four-year high school course in the United States at present?

4. Shall geometry be taught by itself, or shall it be either mixed with algebra (say a day of one subject followed by a day of the other) or fused with it in the form of a combined mathematics?

5. Shall a textbook be used in which the basal propositions are proved in full, the exercises furnishing the opportunity for original work and being looked upon as the most important feature, or shall one be employed in which the pupil is expected to invent the proofs for the basal propositions as well as for the exercises?

6. Shall the terminology and the spirit of a modified Euclid and Legendre prevail in the future as they have in the past, or shall there be a revolution in the use of terms and in the general statements of the propositions?

7. Shall geometry be made a strong elective subject, to be taken only by those whose minds are capable of serious work? Shall it be a required subject, diluted to the comprehension of the weakest minds? Or is it now, by proper teaching, as suitable for all pupils as is any other required subject in the school curriculum? And in any case, will the various distinct types of high schools now arising call for distinct types of geometry?

This brief list might easily be amplified, but it is sufficiently extended to set forth the trend of thought at the present time, and to show that the questions before the teachers of geometry are neither particularly novel nor particularly serious. These questions and others of similar nature are really side issues of two larger questions of far greater significance: (1) Are the reasons for teaching demonstrative geometry such that it should be a required subject, or at least a subject that is strongly recommended to all, whatever the type of high school? (2) If so, how can it be made interesting?

The present work is written with these two larger questions in mind, although it considers from time to time the minor ones already mentioned, together with others of a similar nature. It recognizes that the recent growth in popular education has brought into the high school a less carefully selected type of mind than was formerly the case, and that for this type a different kind of mathematical training will naturally be developed. It proceeds upon the theory, however, that for the normal mind,--for the boy or girl who is preparing to win out in the long run,--geometry will continue to be taught as demonstrative geometry, as a vigorous thought-compelling subject, and along the general lines that the experience of the world has shown to be the best.

Soft mathematics is not interesting to this normal mind, and a sham treatment will never appeal to the pupil; and this book is written for teachers who believe in this principle, who believe in geometry for the sake of geometry, and who earnestly seek to make the subject so interesting that pupils will wish to study it whether it is required or elective. The work stands for the great basal propositions that have come down to us, as logically arranged and as scientifically proved as the powers of the pupils in the American high school will permit; and it seeks to tell the story of these propositions and to show their possible and their probable applications in such a way as to furnish teachers with a fund of interesting material with which to supplement the book work of their cla.s.ses.

After all, the problem of teaching any subject comes down to this: Get a subject worth teaching and then make every minute of it interesting.

Pupils do not object to work if they like a subject, but they do object to aimless and uninteresting tasks. Geometry is particularly fortunate in that the feeling of accomplishment comes with every proposition proved; and, given a cla.s.s of fair intelligence, a teacher must be lacking in knowledge and enthusiasm who cannot foster an interest that will make geometry stand forth as the subject that brings the most pleasure, and that seems the most profitable of all that are studied in the first years of the high school.

Continually to advance, continually to attempt to make mathematics fascinating, always to conserve the best of the old and to sift out and use the best of the new, to believe that "mankind is better served by nature's quiet and progressive changes than by earthquakes,"[3] to believe that geometry as geometry is so valuable and so interesting that the normal mind may rightly demand it,--this is to ally ourselves with progress. Continually to destroy, continually to follow strange G.o.ds, always to decry the best of the old, and to have no well-considered aim in the teaching of a subject,--this is to join the forces of reaction, to waste our time, to be recreant to our trust, to blind ourselves to the failures of the past, and to confess our weakness as teachers. It is with the desire to aid in the progressive movement, to a.s.sist those who believe that real geometry should be recommended to all, and to show that geometry is both attractive and valuable that this book is written.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] And really, though not nominally, in the United States, where the first concepts are found in the kindergarten, and where an excellent course in mensuration is given in any of our better cla.s.s of arithmetics. That we are wise in not attempting serious demonstrative geometry much earlier seems to be generally conceded.

[2] The third stage of geometry as defined in the recent circular (No.

711) of the British Board of Education, London, 1909.

[3] The closing words of a sensible review of the British Board of Education circular (No. 711), on "The Teaching of Geometry" (London, 1909), by H. S. Hall in the _School World_, 1909, p. 222.

CHAPTER II

WHY GEOMETRY IS STUDIED

With geometry, as with other subjects, it is easier to set forth what are not the reasons for studying it than to proceed positively and enumerate the advantages. Although such a negative course is not satisfying to the mind as a finality, it possesses definite advantages in the beginning of such a discussion as this. Whenever false prophets arise, and with an att.i.tude of pained superiority proclaim unworthy aims in human life, it is well to show the fallacy of their position before proceeding to a constructive philosophy. Taking for a moment this negative course, let us inquire as to what are not the reasons for studying geometry, or, to be more emphatic, as to what are not the worthy reasons.

In view of a periodic activity in favor of the utilities of geometry, it is well to understand, in the first place, that geometry is not studied, and never has been studied, because of its positive utility in commercial life or even in the workshop. In America we commonly allow at least a year to plane geometry and a half year to solid geometry; but all of the facts that a skilled mechanic or an engineer would ever need could be taught in a few lessons. All the rest is either obvious or is commercially and technically useless. We prove, for example, that the angles opposite the equal sides of a triangle are equal, a fact that is probably quite as obvious as the postulate that but one line can be drawn through a given point parallel to a given line. We then prove, sometimes by the unsatisfactory process of _reductio ad absurdum_, the converse of this proposition,--a fact that is as obvious as most other facts that come to our consciousness, at least after the preceding proposition has been proved. And these two theorems are perfectly fair types of upwards of one hundred sixty or seventy propositions comprising Euclid's books on plane geometry. They are generally not useful in daily life, and they were never intended to be so. There is an oft-repeated but not well-authenticated story of Euclid that ill.u.s.trates the feeling of the founders of geometry as well as of its most worthy teachers. A Greek writer, Stobaeus, relates the story in these words:

Some one who had begun to read geometry with Euclid, when he had learned the first theorem, asked, "But what shall I get by learning these things?" Euclid called his slave and said, "Give him three obols, since he must make gain out of what he learns."

Whether true or not, the story expresses the sentiment that runs through Euclid's work, and not improbably we have here a bit of real biography,--practically all of the personal Euclid that has come down to us from the world's first great textbook maker. It is well that we read the story occasionally, and also such words as the following, recently uttered[4] by Sir Conan Doyle,--words bearing the same lesson, although upon a different theme:

In the present utilitarian age one frequently hears the question asked, "What is the use of it all?" as if every n.o.ble deed was not its own justification. As if every action which makes for self-denial, for hardihood, and for endurance was not in itself a most precious lesson to mankind. That people can be found to ask such a question shows how far materialism has gone, and how needful it is that we insist upon the value of all that is n.o.bler and higher in life.

An American statesman and jurist, speaking upon a similar occasion[5], gave utterance to the same sentiments in these words:

When the time comes that knowledge will not be sought for its own sake, and men will not press forward simply in a desire of achievement, without hope of gain, to extend the limits of human knowledge and information, then, indeed, will the race enter upon its decadence.

There have not been wanting, however, in every age, those whose zeal is in inverse proportion to their experience, who were possessed with the idea that it is the duty of the schools to make geometry practical. We have them to-day, and the world had them yesterday, and the future shall see them as active as ever.

These people do good to the world, and their labors should always be welcome, for out of the myriad of suggestions that they make a few have value, and these are helpful both to the mathematician and the artisan.

Not infrequently they have contributed material that serves to make geometry somewhat more interesting, but it must be confessed that most of their work is merely the threshing of old straw, like the work of those who follow the will-o'-the-wisp of the circle squarers. The medieval astrologers wished to make geometry more practical, and so they carried to a considerable length the study of the star polygon, a figure that they could use in their profession. The cathedral builders, as their art progressed, found that architectural drawings were more exact if made with a single opening of the compa.s.ses, and it is probable that their influence led to the development of this phase of geometry in the Middle Ages as a practical application of the science. Later, and about the beginning of the sixteenth century, the revival of art, and particularly the great development of painting, led to the practical application of geometry to the study of perspective and of those curves[6] that occur most frequently in the graphic arts. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the publication of a large number of treatises on practical geometry, usually relating to the measuring of distances and partly answering the purposes of our present trigonometry.