>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> As I already said in another occasion, I think that many listmembers are
> interested in pedagogical issues, and they are right to believe that
> topics on this forum not only should be tied to scholarly research.
>
> A few weeks ago, when I was trying (alas, with little success) to interest
> members towards "historiography of mathematics", a friend told me (private
> correspondence):
>
> "as nobody seems to be interested in taking this matter up, let me
> at least make a few private remarks. I do not know whether they
> are worth to be made public; no doubt they would create quite an
> uproar."
>
> In substance, my correspondent disagrees completely with the current fad
> that encourages teaching of the (so-called) History of Mathematics either
> to undergraduates or to normal mathematics graduates when both his/her
> general historical background and or intellectual maturity are below a
> reasonable (whatever the term means) threshold:
>
> "Of course, a lecturer should make the occasional historical
> remark, and it should be well founded. But it is not possible to
> acquire historical knowledge about the Renaissance authors without
> reading Italian, about the Baroque authors without Latin, about
> the 18th/19th century authors without French. And even for Peano
> we also need latine sine flexione. Every translation is already
> an interpretation. Second hand clothes may be acceptable; second
> hand knowledge is not."
>
> Reactions?...
>
> Julio Gonzalez Cabillon
Dear Professor Cabillon,
If one takes it as it stands what your friend wrote, then history is dead.
If one takes it as a goal to aim at, then I agree with him.
Best regards, Heinz Lueneburg