An investigation of primary school arithmetic in the United States between Colburn and Thorndike

The following article provides a brief account of the development of American didactics of arithmetic between 1821 and 1917, as it appears in the textbooks of the time and with special reference to Warren Colburn (1793-1833) and Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949). It is focuses on the methodological ideas put forward in a series of classical arithmetic textbooks of the time. The core of the study is the analysis of a forgotten, yet in its spirit actual debate between Dewey and Phillips concerning the nature of arithmetic knowledge. This discussion owes a great deal to the remarkable historical work of R. G. Clason