With a Tinge of Green: Mary Walters’ Cyphering Book, 1820

Abstract

In 1820 Mary Walters was based in Baltimore, Maryland. She had emigrated from Ireland to North America and her cyphering book, prepared in 1820, provides evidence that in Maryland some Irish-heritage school teachers were responsible for engaging students in a form of mathematics education that had more than a tinge of green. Certainly, like all who followed the abbaco arithmetic curriculum, Mary was expected to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide counting numbers, and to apply elementary measurement principles in a range of everyday situations. When dealing with tasks involving the measurement of quantities, she needed to be able to change from one set of units to another. She also needed to learn to apply the direct rule of three in a wide range of real-life scenarios in which ratio and proportional thinking were needed. But the entries in Mary’s cyphering book also made it clear that her teacher(s) wanted her to inject herself into problem-based scenarios by which she would learn to apply elementary arithmetic principles to tasks concerned with human-interest, life-and-death situations which often generated emotions like jealousy, love, and desire. In particular, she was expected to appreciate the power of stories, poetry and song to convey interesting problem scenarios.