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Engineering Studies and Secondary Education: Descriptive Geometry in the Netherlands (1820–1960)

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Abstract

Descriptive geometry was mentioned in a plan for lessons for the first time in the Netherlands in 1819, at the School for Artillery and Military Engineers in Delft. The teacher was Isaac Schmidt , who in 1821 published a translation of Essais de géométrie by Lacroix. In 1828 the school was moved to Breda and at the same time became the Royal Military Academy, with an updated and more demanding curriculum, for military and some civilian (non-military) engineers. In 1842 the Royal Academy, for civilian engineers only, was established in Delft. In 1840–1841 Hendrik Strootman , teacher at the Royal Military Academy, published the first original Dutch textbook on descriptive geometry; his colleague Jacob Badon Ghyben published a textbook in 1858. The books by these two authors were widely used until the twentieth century, at the Royal Military Academy, at the Royal Academy and also in some secondary schools.

The lack of reliable secondary education remained a problem for both Academies until the law on secondary education of 1863. This law defined a new type of secondary school, the Hogere Burger School (Higher School for Citizens), and also a Polytechnic School, as successor to the Royal Academy. The HBS (Hogere Burger School) provided a good preparation for this Polytechnic School. Descriptive geometry was a subject in the final exams of the HBS until 1958. The Polytechnic School developed into the Delft University of Technology; descriptive geometry was mentioned in the formal program until 1969.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Duytsche Mathematique (Dutch Mathematics) was the first Dutch course for engineers, established at Leiden University on request of Maurits van Nassau, with a teaching plan by Simon Stevin (Krüger 2010).

  2. 2.

    From 1838 until 1863 a gymnasium consisted of two departments: a Latin school, with emphasis on Latin and Greek, and a Science department, with modern languages and sciences. The Latin school prepared for admission to the university. From 1864 the Science departments were closed and the students were transferred to a HBS.

  3. 3.

    All translations of quotations are by Jenneke Krüger.

  4. 4.

    Professor William Farish (1759–1837) of Cambridge University provided detailed rules for isometric drawing. He published his ideas in an article ‘On Isometrical Perspective’, in Cambridge Philosophical Transactions. 1 (1822), In this paper he discussed the ‘need for accurate technical working drawings free of optical distortion’.

  5. 5.

    Baudet (1992) mentions as graduates: civil engineers, shipbuilding engineers, mining engineers, surveyors of weights and measures, civil servants for the East Indies.

  6. 6.

    Van Goens graduated in 1851.

  7. 7.

    De Vries was assistant to Fiedler at the ETH in Zürich from 1890 to 1894, with descriptive and projective geometry as his areas of work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Freudenthal Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Jenneke Krüger

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  1. Jenneke Krüger
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Correspondence to Jenneke Krüger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UFR Sciences et Techniques, Nantes, France

    Évelyne Barbin

  2. Department of Mathematics, Sapienza–University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Marta Menghini

  3. University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany

    Klaus Volkert

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Krüger, J. (2019). Engineering Studies and Secondary Education: Descriptive Geometry in the Netherlands (1820–1960). In: Barbin, É., Menghini, M., Volkert, K. (eds) Descriptive Geometry, The Spread of a Polytechnic Art. International Studies in the History of Mathematics and its Teaching. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14808-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14808-9_14

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