Traditional Catholic Mathematics Books

Christ the King's mathematics books are a refreshing change from the typical public-school style, modern-math books everwhere today. As with all our books, our mathematics books focus on teaching the student the principles of the sciences - that is, the why behind the formulas and conclusions. We strive to avoid, like the plague, teaching students to simply solve problems and manipulate formulas, without knowing the why or the what of it.

To make this clear, let us consider geometry, which is one of the classic seven liberal arts. These seven arts (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, rhetoric, logic, and grammar) have formed just about every excellent mind through the centuries, including that of St. Thomas Aquinas. And without a doubt, THE MOST EXCELLENT geometry book/course is Euclidean geometry. Anyone who wishes to do well in mathmetics and to greatly increase his clear thinking should study Euclidean geometry. Euclid lived almost 2,500 years ago, and is called the "Father of Geometry." The book he put together, simply called "The Elements," was used as the standard geometry text in just about every school until around the year 1900. At that time, mathematics sadly began to "go modern." The result of no longer "doing Euclid" has been an unmitigated disaster for young minds. Yes, many students today can ratlle off formulas, recognize patterns, and solve problems. But can they really think? Are they logical? We cannot urge you strongly enough to expose your student to Euclidean geometry. We are confident you will not be sorry, for Euclidean geometry trains the mind like no other math book, hands-down. There are plenty of good Euclidean geometry books available (we recommend the Green Lion Press version, isbn 978-1888009194). But Euclidean geometry is a challenge. For this reason, we highly recommend our friendly video course on the first six books of Euclid, which consists of about 90 recorded sessions with Catholic homeschooling students with a qualified instructor. Here is what one of the students (speaking for the class), had to say after finishing the course:

“Thank you for being our excellent teacher this year! We are very grateful to you for teching us this extremely useful knowledge, and we appreciate your patience in helping us to understand it for ourselves. This class has really made a difference in my love for math and logic! Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into us students.”