"J. J. Sylvester was an enthusiastic supporter of reform [in the teaching of geometry]. The difference in attitude on this question between the two foremost British mathematicians, J. J. Sylvester, the algebraist, and Arthur Cayley, the algebraist and geometer, was grotesque. Sylvester wished to bury Euclid "deeper than e'er plummet sounded" out of the schoolboy's reach; Cayley, an ardent admirer of Euclid, desired the retention of Simson's Euclid. When reminded that this treatise was a mixture of Euclid and Simson, Cayley suggested striking out Simson's additions and keeping strictly to the original treatise."
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Academics from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesMathematicians from the United StatesMathematicians from SwitzerlandHistorians of mathematics
Original Language: English
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p. 285; Cited in: Moritz (1914, 148); Persons and anecdotes
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Florian_Cajori
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Florian Cajori
1859 – 1930
Florian Cajori (1859 – 1930) was a Swiss-American professor of mathematics and physics. He was one of the most celebrated historians of mathematics in his day. Cajori's A History of Mathematics (1894) was the first popular presentation of the history of mathematics in the United States and his 1928 –1929 History of Mathematical Notations has been described as "unsurpassed."
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