Page 119 - Textos de Matemática Vol. 34

THE TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA IN THE 19TH CENTURY
JAIME CARVALHO E SILVA
Dedicated to Professor J. A. Sampaio Martins on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday
Abstract. We give an overview of the content of the mathematics course, the type and quality of the professors, the textbooks used and the methods of teaching at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Coimbra during the 19th century. We see that progressively the level of mathematics studies was growing attaining an interesting degree of quality in the end of the 19th century.
1. Introduction
The reform of the Portuguese University in 1772 represents the biggest quali- tative and quantitative change of the mathematics panorama ever carried out in a short time in Portugal. In the new University Statutes two new Faculties were created: Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. New professors were hired, new textbooks were edited and the Statutes made it clear that Professors had to do research and not reduce their activity to teaching and administration.
Mathematics is placed in a very high position in these statutes: “Mathematics has such an indisputable perfection (...) that it not only with rigour or with property merits the name of Science (...)”.
When it was created, the mathematics course had four years and was made up of four disciplines: Geometry, Algebra, Mechanics and Astronomy. But, in the beginning of the 19th century the course was completely different: it had five years and included the disciplines shown in the following table.
2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. 01A55.
Key words and phrases. History of Mathematics in Portugal. The work was supported by CMUC.
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