...with the Best Methods of Instruction Explained and Illustrated.

New York: Published by A.S. Barnes & Co., 1873.

8vo.; brown pebbled-cloth stamped in gilt and blind; extremities scuffed.

First edition. A presentation copy, inscribed “To His Excellency U.S. Grant with the respectful compliments of the Author,” on the front free endpaper.

Davies (1798-1876) was a West Point graduate who taught mathematics and natural and experimental philosophy at the Academy for twenty years. Nicknamed “Old Tush” because of his no-nonsense classroom demeanor, Davies produced more than fifty texts on algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. Several of his books were adopted in the West Point curriculum. “It was not merely his teaching” that distinguished him, one professor said about Davies, “but it was also the producing of the best textbooks on the exact sciences, which have gone into the schools, academies, and colleges of the country, directing the studies and enlightening the minds of millions of our rising youth.” Davies resigned from the Academy to write full time in 1837, but four years later he was reappointed as paymaster, serving as West Point treasurer until 1845. From 1857 until his death in 1876, Davies taught at Columbia College in New York.