Charles Davies,  USMA 1816

Davies1.JPG (48293 bytes)     Davies3.JPG (41450 bytes)     Davies5.JPG (54288 bytes)

 

Biography of Prof. Davies.

Obituary.

Chapter of thesis by Amy Ackenberg-Hastings about Davies.


Archival Material

Archival material about Charles Davies at Columbia.  

Letters of Davies at USMA as transcribed by George Rosenstein. 

The Davies-Emerson court case about plagiarism.


Publications (other than books):

Davies, Charles, "Demonstration of a problem in conic sections," American Journal of Science, 6 (1823), 280-282. [Need to get copy, but it is not at USMA]
        Karpinski's bibliography lists papers of interest in AmJSci, pp. 585-589. This paper is the only Davies paper and the only USMA connection I noted. However, there are some reviews of calculus books.

Davies, Charles. Lecture on the Duties and Relations of Parents, Teachers, and Pupils, as Connected with Education. Detroit: Free Press Book and Job Office Print, 1852. 35pp. Copy in the University of Michigan Library: LB 1741 .D25. Rickey has photocopy. 

 Author:
              Columbia College (New York, N.Y.)
 Title:
              Addresses of the newly-appointed professors of Columbia College : with an
              introductory address by William Betts, February 1858.
 Description:
              201 p. ; 24 cm.
 Published:
              New York : By authority of the Trustees, 1858 (New York : Wynkoop,
              Hallenbeck & Thomas)
Contents:
               Introductory address at the inauguration of the newly-appointed professors of Columbia College, February 1858 / by William Betts -- Chemistry : an inaugural address, delivered before the Trustees of Columbia College, February 4, A.D. 1858 / by Charles A. Joy ... -- Inaugural address of Francis Lieber, Professor of History and Political Science, delivered on the 17th of February, 1858 -- Mathematics : inaugural address of Charles Davies ... on the nature, language, and uses of mathematical science, February 11th, 1858 -- Inaugural discourse / by Charles Murray Nairne, Professor of Literature and Philosophy, February 1858.
Location at Columbia University:
            RARE BOOK                 B378.7CK1 C723
            COLUMBIANA             CK1 C72


Books:

Davies, Charles. : Elements of surveying and levelling; with descriptions of the instruments and the necessary tables. ; By Charles Davies, LL.D. author of A full course of mathematics. A.S. Barnes & Co. New York/Chicago. 1873. 8vo, 161 p. 6 fold. plates, figs., cuts. Legal sheep, hinges cracked, worn with slight damp staining. The author was a distinguished mathematician and a graduate of West Point in 1815. He was later professor of mathematics there and then at N.Y.U. and Columbia. The system he taught was developed by Colonel Jared Mansfield and all surveys of public lands in the U.S. were done using the Mansfield-Davies methods. Contains a chapter on railroad and one on mine surveying. Davies died in 1876 and this is the last and most complete edition. The engraved plates were the work of a West Point cadet. (Bkinv#06927). Offered for sale by Murray Hudson Antiquarian Books, Maps & Globes at US$175.00
        Found at http://www.bibliofind.com/
    Need to check out the comment about Mansfield. Who was the cadet who did the engravings?

Davies, Charles and Peck, William G., Mathematical dictionary and cyclopedia of mathematical science, comprising definitions of all the terms employed in mathematics - an analysis of each branch, and of the whole, as forming a single science. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. and New Haven: Durrie & Peck. 


 Davies-plaque-0.jpg (37012 bytes)    Plaque about Davies in Cullum Hall

Genealogy:

Charles Davies and his wife had the following children:

 

References:

Arney, Chris, West Point's Scientific 200: Celebration of the Bicentennial. Biographies of 200 of West Point's Most Successful and Influential Mathematicians, Scientists, Engineers, and Technologists, 2002.

Lydia Elaine Greene, "A Century of Progress in Secondary School Mathematics 1834-1934," Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 12, No. 5. (Mar., 1935), pp. 220-232.

Horii, Masanobu, "OSAKA EIGO GAKKO NO SUGAKU KYOIKU TO DAVIES, BOURDON, LEGENDRE: KYOTO DAIGAKU NO SHIRYO O CHUSHIN NI," [Mathematics education at the Osaka English School and Davies, Bourdon, and Legendre: materials from Kyoto University], Kagakushi Kenkyu (Journal of History of Science, Japan) [Japan] 1999 38(209): 1-10. ISSN: 0022-7692.

 

Elizabeth Johns, "Drawing Instruction at Central High School and Its Impact on Thomas Eakins," Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 15, No. 2. (Summer, 1980), pp. 139-149.
 

 

F. P. Matz, "John Newton Lyle," The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 4. (Apr., 1896), pp. 95-100.

 

 

 

G. A. Miller, "The Obsolete in Mathematics," The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 24, No. 10 (Dec., 1917), pp. 453-456.

This paper begins by chastising advertisements for the Dictionary of Davies and Peck as being "A standard work for 60 years." Miller points out that many definitions were obsolete when written and the work has certainly not been brought up to date. However, he does point out that such a work can be useful to historians as a snapshot of the times.

Joseph Seidlin and W. Paul Webber, "Purpose in Teaching Mathematics," National Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 9, No. 7 (Apr., 1935), pp. 202-205

Opens by quoting the clear definition of science given in the preface of the 1849 Arithmetic of Davies and regrets that modern texts do not contain such information.

Isabel C. Sturm, "Miscellaneous Notes," Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 1. (Sep. - Oct., 1952), pp. 43-45.

The New Arithmetic (1846) of Davies was one of the last texts to contain problems about liquor.