A Treatise on Algebra

PREFACE.

THE stereotype plates of my Treatise on Algebra having become so much worn in the printing of more than 60,000 copies that it had become necessary to cast them, aside, I decided to improve the opportunity to make a thorough revision of the work. I therefore solicited criticisms from several college professors who had had much experience in the use of this book, and in reply have received numerous suggestions. The book has been almost entirely rewritten, nearly every page of it having been given to the printer in manuscript. The general plan of the original work has not been materially altered, but the changes of arrangement and of execution are numerous. In the former editions, in place of abstruse demonstrations, I sometimes employed numerical illustrations, or deductions from particular examples. In the present edition such methods have been discarded, and I have aimed to demonstrate with conciseness and elegance every principle which is propounded.

This book therefore aims to exhibit in logical order all those principles of Algebra which are most important as a preparation for the subsequent branches of a college course of mathematics. I have retained, with but slight alteration, a feature which was made prominent in the former editions, that of stating each problem twice: first as a restricted numerical problem, and then in a more general form, aiming thereby to lead the student to cultivate the faculty of generalization. At the same time I have very much increased the number of examples incorporated with each chapter of the book, and at the close have given a large collection of examples, to which the teacher may resort whenever occasion may require.

The proofs of the work have all been examined by Prof. H. A. Newton, to whom I am indebted for numerous and important suggestions.