"THE COMMON SCHOOL ALGEBRA. BY THOMAS SHERWIN, A. M., PRINCIPAL OF THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON; AUTHOR OF BOSTON: 29 CORNHILL. 1862. Edue T 125.62.753 { $ HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRART GIFT OF GEORGE ARTHUR PLIMPTON Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE PREFACE. THE great difficulty, in the study of Algebra, is to attain a clear comprehension of the earliest steps. The first principles should, therefore, be communicated to the learner gradually, and in the most simple and intelligible manner. Experience proves that these principles are most successfully taught by means of easy problems. But even when this mode is pursued, a majority of pupils find trouble in expressing algebraically the conditions of the problems. The author has, therefore, placed at the commencement of his work a series of introductory exercises, designed to familiarize the learner with representing quantities and performing the simplest algebraic processes, also to prepare him for putting problems into equations. These introductory exercises, which were written about three years since, were shown to several excellent teachers, and received their approbation. They were subsequently used in two of the Boston schools, and with such success, that the author was solicited by a number of gentlemen, who were acquainted with his "Elements of Algebra," and who knew his plan in the present work, to prepare a treatise for common schools. |