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JOACHIM J. ESTEVE JR. Georgetown University Washington, D.C.
Sir: Having observed first hand and worked with Mr. Mann in El Salvador when he served as Ambassador to that Central American country, I can assure you he is widely respected and admired by Latin Americans of all walks of life, as is his lovely wife Nancy.
CHARLES HILLINGER Los Angeles Times Los Angeles
Sir: Mr. Mann says that the job of the U.S. "is to convince Latin Americans that their interests lie parallel to ours—not because of sentiment, but in their own self-interest. Democracy is a tie in these cases, economics is a tie, and Christianity is another tie." All those things that have been said are half truths. Economics cannot be a tie if the prices of our raw materials continually decrease while the prices of your manufactured goods continually increase. Democracy and the idea of constitutional government cannot be a tie when dictatorships, unfortunately, now govern more than six countries in Latin America. It is necessary for the U.S. State Department to abandon the idea that only those dictatorships that exist beyond the Iron Curtain are bad.
JAIME ASPIAZU Guayaquil, Ecuador
The New Math
Sir: As an elementary teacher of the modern approach to mathematics, I wish to commend you for your informative, understandable, enthusiastic and basically honest account [Jan. 31] of the much-needed attempts to improve mathematics teaching throughout the child's school years.
The vast majority of parents applaud the school's effort in this respect. Teachers genuinely enjoy teaching mathematics using the modern approach, thereby increasing their own and their pupils' mathematics literacy and making unnecessary the use of "strongarm" rote methods of teaching and learning.
Many children are now operating mathematically on a much higher plane than their contemporaries of a decade ago. Those of us who see what is happening from the inside believe we will soon reap a considerable harvest from our present efforts.
RICHARD A. ANDERSON Schenectady, N.Y.
Sir: As a high school student who was caught in the middle when New York City schools switched over to "new" mathematics, I differ strongly with the viewpoint you expressed in Education.
The basic fallacy in new mathematics is that it fails to see why mathematics is taught at all. For the very few who intend to pursue mathematical philosophy as a career, new math is dandy. But for the vast majority, who learn math in order to deal with the arithmetical problems of life, new math is a hodgepodge of abstractions that range from the irrelevant to the absurd and merely interfere with the practical applications of mathematics.
LARRY KAPLAN Bayside, N.Y.
Sir: You will be interested to know that three-to six-year-olds in Montessori schools in America and throughout the world are working with mathematical apparatus such as beads, rods, counters, square and cube formations, etc., taking the common-sense road from the concrete to the abstract.
Maria Montessori stated that there was no such thing as a nonmathematical mind. It was only the result of poor teaching. It would appear that she was far ahead of her time.
MARIANNE T. MILLER Washington, D.C.
Muscles, Now & Then