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6. De Morgan and Mathematics Education

Chapter of: Augustus De Morgan, Polymath: New Perspectives on his Life and Legacy(pp. 152–173)

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Metadata
Title6. De Morgan and Mathematics Education
ContributorChristopher Stray(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0408.06
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0408/chapters/10.11647/obp.0408.06
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightChristopher Stray
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2024-09-04
Long abstractAugustus De Morgan might be seen as a man of a single institution: the London University, renamed University College London (UCL) in 1836. But he had experience of several others: the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK), the Royal Astronomical Society and the London Mathematical Society, among others. Most significantly, perhaps, he went to London after graduating from the University of Cambridge, which was throughout the nineteenth century the dominant site of mathematical work in the United Kingdom. During his long career in London, De Morgan kept a watching brief on the teaching of mathematics in Cambridge and elsewhere, publishing several articles on the subject. Some of his articles appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Education, edited throughout its life (1830-5) by De Morgan’s UCL colleague George Long. The Journal, to which he contributed over 30 articles, was published by the SDUK, of which De Morgan was an active member. This chapter discusses De Morgan’s often critical accounts of the curricula and teaching, especially of mathematics, in the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and elsewhere.
Page rangepp. 152–173
Print length22 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Christopher Stray

(author)
Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of History, Heritage and Classics at Swansea University
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4270-8018

Christopher Stray is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of History, Heritage and Classics at Swansea University. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2012), Beinecke Library, Yale University (2005), and a visiting fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge (1996-98). His principal research interests are the history of classical scholarship and teaching, particularly at the university level; his essay collection Classics in Britain, 1800-2000 was published by Clarendon Press in 2018. He has recently contributed to collaborative projects on William Whewell, Robert Leslie Ellis and Charles Babbage, and his edition of J.M.F. Wright’s 1827 undergraduate memoir Alma Mater; or, Seven Years at the University of Cambridge appeared with University of Exeter Press in 2023.

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