Abstract
This chapter focuses on U.S. currency issues, related school mathematics practices during the period 1775–1792. As a result of post-war agreements spelled out by the Treaty of Paris (1783), the fledgling U.S. Congress needed to establish an official currency for the new nation. At that time, the most powerful financial figure in the nation was Robert Morris, Superintendent of Finance between 1781 and 1784, but aspects of his proposal for a new currency system were problematized by the young, and influential Thomas Jefferson, already a former Governor of Virginia, and famous for having drafted the Declaration of Independence. Like Morris, Jefferson proposed a decimal-based system of coinage, but the units for Morris’s and Jefferson’s systems were different. It was Jefferson’s system which prevailed, and the most startling thing about his success on this matter was that his fundamental argument belonged to the realm of mathematics education—a combination of mathematics and education. Jefferson argued that his system would assist all U.S. citizens to achieve a better grasp of basic arithmetic than ever before, and that that would make it easier for them to survive with dignity. This chapter summarizes Jefferson’s main arguments for the introduction of his version of decimal currency, and why he thought educational issues were so important.
“When I was young, mathematics was the passion of my life. The same passion has returned upon me [at age 69], but with unequal powers. Processes which I then read off with the facility of common discourse, now cost me labor, time, and slow investigation.”
Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, October 12, 1812.
“I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet.”
Remarks of President John F. Kennedy at a Dinner honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere, held at the White House, April 29, 1962.
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Clements, M.A.(., Ellerton, N.F. (2015). Thomas Jefferson and an Arithmetic for the People. In: Thomas Jefferson and his Decimals 1775–1810: Neglected Years in the History of U.S. School Mathematics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02505-6_3
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