David Eugene Smith is considered one of the founders of the field of mathematics education. Smith was born in Cortland, New York, to Abram P. Smith, attorney and surrogate judge, and Mary Elizabeth Bronson, who taught her young son Latin and Greek.[1] He attendedSyracuse University, graduating in 1881 (Ph. D., 1887; LL.D., 1905). He studied to be a lawyer concentrating in arts and humanities, but accepted an instructorship in mathematics at the Cortland Normal School in 1884[2] where he attended as a young man. While at the Cortland Normal School Smith became a member of the Young Men's Debating Club[3] (today theDelphic Fraternity.) He became a professor at theMichigan State Normal College in 1891 (later Eastern Michigan University), the principal at theState Normal School inBrockport, New York (1898), and a professor of mathematics atTeachers College, Columbia University (1901) where he remained until his retirement in 1926.
Smith became president of theMathematical Association of America in 1920[2][4] and served as the president of theHistory of Science Society in 1927.[5] He also wrote a large number of publications of various types. He was editor of theBulletin of theAmerican Mathematical Society; contributed to other mathematical journals; published a series of textbooks; translatedFelix Klein'sFamous Problems of Geometry, Fink'sHistory of Mathematics, and theTreviso Arithmetic. He edited[6]Augustus De Morgan'sA Budget of Paradoxes (1915) and edited[7]A Source Book in Mathematics (1929). He wrote many books on Mathematics which are listed below.He served as Mathematics Editor of the 14th edition of theEncyclopedia Britannica, 1929.Abacus andAlgebra were his own contributions to the first volume.
In 2020,Francis Su publishedMathematics for Human Flourishing, in which he cites Smith's speech entitled "Religio Mathematici" (Latin: faith of a mathematician), his farewell address delivered to theMathematical Association of America in 1921.[8]
An annotated collection of Smith's writings was published in 2022. It includes postcards (digitized by the Cortland Historical Society), poetry, speeches, and various excerpts from his works. In the foreword,Francis Su writes of Smith: "He rekindled the awe I experienced when I first saw the beauty and depth of mathematics, an awe that I—as a mathematician who now takes these things for granted—might have long since forgotten."[9]
^Su, Francis Edward (2020).Mathematics for human flourishing. With Christopher Jackson. New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN978-0-300-23713-9.OCLC1090441053.
^abSmith, David Eugene (2022). Abbey, Tristan (ed.).In the Shadow of the Palms: The Selected Works of David Eugene Smith. Foreword by Francis Su. Alexandria, Va: Science Venerable Press. pp. xi.ISBN978-1-959976-00-4.
