Author(s):
Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University)
The Analyst: or, An Introduction to the Mathematics: Containing the Doctrine of Vulgar and Decimal Fractions, published in 1746, is an example of a commercial textbook compiled specifically for use in British secondary schools of the 18th century. The description of the contents as provided on the cover of this book allows for an understanding of the scope of the material to be covered. No specific author was credited with the work, as it is a compilation of existing writings.
The first and last pages of the first chapter indicate the text’s underlying philosophy of education.
Worked-out examples for determining the greatest common factor:
Evolution, or the extraction of roots, was a typical topic in arithmetic textbooks of the 18th and 19th centuries.
A full digitization of the copy owned by the University of Michigan is available from GoogleBooks.
Index to Mathematical Treasures
Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University), "Mathematical Treasure: The Analyst, or An Introduction to the Mathematics," Convergence (January 2024)