18th Century Mathematics Education : Effects of Enlightenment in Iceland

• Main Author: Bjarnadóttir, Kristín
• Other Authors: Education
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Mathematics (all); Iceland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/4891

Living conditions in Iceland worsened in the period 1600–1800, and the greatest lava flow on earth in historical times in 1783–84 was accompanied with severe earthquakes and famine. Concurrently, the Enlightenment movement, channelled from Germany through Denmark, had considerable influence in Iceland from 1770 onwards. People, interested in progress in Iceland, established a society which advanced the Enlightenment by publishing a journal and books on various practical matters. Among them were philosopher Ó. Olavius and lawyer Ó. Stephensen, later Governor of Iceland, both educated in Copenhagen. The Enlightenment movement produced in the 1780s substantial arithmetic textbooks deliberately intended to raise the educational standards of Icelanders. One of them was by Olavius in 1780, modelled on Danish and German textbooks. The other arithmetic textbook published in 1785 by Stephensen, was accompanied with introduction to algebra, modelled on lectures at the University of Copenhagen. It was immediately sanctioned as a textbook at the two Latin schools, where, however, mathematics education was at its nadir until 1822. These two books, in addition to a book of arithmetic tables, remained the only arithmetics textbooks available in Icelandic until the 1840s. Both were good representatives of the typical European arithmetic textbook of the practica type. Their influence in the aftermath of the disastrous events will be explored as well as their roots in German arithmetic education tradition in the Enlightenment period. Living conditions in Iceland worsened in the period 1600–1800, and the greatest lava flow on earth in historical times in 1783–84 was accompanied with severe earthquakes and famine. Concurrently, the Enlightenment movement, channelled from Germany through Denmark, had considerable influence in Iceland from 1770 onwards. People, interested in progress in Iceland, established a society which advanced the Enlightenment by publishing a journal and books on various practical matters. Among them were ...