DESPITE the great amount of attention focused on the secondary school mathematics curriculum in recent years, there remains a major aspect of the teaching of college preparatory mathematics which has been consistently overlooked. While there seems to be little question that the content and approach of the modern curricula are significant and relevant to the needs and purposes of the future mathematician, engineer, physicist, and statistician, the relevance of the secondary school college preparatory mathematics curriculum to the lives of the future historian, musician, teacher of English, or any articulate layman is doubtful.