Aspects of Mathematics Education in Secondary Technical Schools under the Old System: From Actual Curriculum Tables

Abstract

　　 Secondary education under the old system consists of junior high school, girls’ high school, and vocational school.  In the field of history of mathematics education, although research on the preceding two kinds of schools has progressed, the last one has not been focused on yet.  Among the vocational schools, technical schools are considered to have some characteristics, such as the focus on applied aspect and the new contents of mathematics.  Technical schools were deeply affected by the development of local industry and the industrial policy of national government.  There were only about 20 techincal schools in the late Meiji era (1900’s).  The number increased to 480 at the end of World War II.  During this period, many techincal school mathematics teachers discussed about two issues, constructing a national curricurum and upgrading teaching contents.  In this paper, refering to about fifty mathematics programs actually used in the technical schools, I showed the following point.  First, mathematics programs of technical schools vary a lot according to courses, like mechanics, chemics, and so on, or school years.  Second, although there was no national curriculum for technical school under the old system, each school developed its own course of study and introduced “higher mathematics”, such as calculus and analytic geometry, in the late Taisho era (1920’s).  It was 1940’s at the mid World War II that junior high school, which is so called the main stream of secondary education, adopted the curriculum including calculus and analytic geometry.  

　　Textbooks actually used in the technical schools are not known well.  The author will continue to search these kind of materials to make clear the mathematics classes at that time.