ALGEBRA

By Richard E. Johnson, LonaLee Lendsey, Prof. William E. Slesnick(Mathematics). Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1967. 613 pp$5.80.

As a teacher of mathematics who has used the first edition of this text for a few years, I recognize a number of changes in the revised text which improve its teaching potential considerably. The most welcome change is in the basic sequence of topics in the text itself. The revised edition has a sequence which is much more natural. Each chapter leads more easily to the following one, making it seem to the student that he himself is developing the system of Algebra under the guidance of the teacher.

The first edition made it more difficult to achieve this goal as the sequence was choppy and the teacher was forced to jump around in the text in order to find a more satis-factory order of topics. Specifically, I found that the discussion of polynomials in one variable was a much more natural consequence of earlier topics, and have found that it is easier to teach this material (Chapter 10 in the original text) immediately after the discussion of signed numbers (Chapter 5 in the original text). The revision has reorganized the materials in precisely this sequence making a few additional reorganizations to make the sequence even smoother

The second change I noticed immediately was minor as far as revision was concerned, but added immeasurably to the quality of the text. The color used in the original edition in graphs and tables, in chapter and section headings, and in other places to give emphasis was changed to a color which is much easier on the eyes and, therefore, Gmore enjoyable to read. The importance of

this seemingly insignificant change is reflected mostly in the students' attitude to ward learning- a very significant place to find a revision reflected. The quality of the presentation has remained high, and, all in all, I feel that the changes have produced a far better text for high school Algebra than the first edition had done.

Mathematics Coordinator (K-12) forHanover, N. H., and Norwich, Vt.,school systems