Easy Lessons in the Differential Calculus - Indicating From the Outset the Utility of the Processes Called Differentiation and Integration #251151

I first took interest in algebra when I found that problems in Single and Double Position could be solved much more readily by algebra than by the rather absurd rules given for such problems in books on arithmetic. In like manner, I could find no interest in the Differential Calculus till, after wading through two hundred pages of matter having no apparent use (and for the most part really useless), I found the calculus available for the ready solution of problems in Maxima and Minima. This little work has been planned with. Direct reference to my own experience at school and college. The usual method of teaching the Differential and Integral Calculus seems to me almost as absurd (quite as absurd it could scarcely be) as the plan by which chil dren, instead of being taught how to speak — whether their own language or another — tare made to learn by rote rules relating to the philosophy of language such as not one grammarian in ten thousand ever thinks about in after life.