The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed many significant changes in mathematics education. Mathematics teaching at Cambridge was revivified; the hold of Oxford and Cambridge on university education was broken; a new type of secondary school arose in which mathematics was awarded a place of honour in the curriculum; and the particular problems of teaching and learning mathematics gradually became more explicitly and professionally scrutinised. The case for a state system of education was argued as were the objectives which such a system should seek. Closely concerned with many of these changes and developments, as well as with the general diffusion of mathematical ideas, was Augustus De Morgan.

EARLY YEARS AND SCHOOL

De Morgan, the son of an army colonel, was born in Madurai, southern India, in 1806. He spent only seven months in India, but the stay was to prove of great significance for he contracted an eye infection and lost the sight of his right eye. His father brought the family back to England, but he himself soon returned to India. Indeed, Augustus was to see little of his father. They had the years 1810–12 together, during which time his father taught Augustus ‘reading and writing’, but then Colonel De Morgan set out for India once more. There he became ill with a liver complaint and died on the voyage back to England.

By that time Augustus had begun to attend a series of private schools run by single ladies or clergymen.