The article by Mrs. Linfoot on the “Teaching of Elementary Inequalities” published in the issue of the Mathematical Gazette for July, 1940, raises a matter of considerable interest and importance.
It is unhappily the case that the elementary treatment of inequalities remains a weak point in English mathematical teaching. While no Higher School Certificate examination paper in Algebra would be considered complete without the inclusion of questions on identities and equations, yet direct questions on inequalities and in equations occur comparatively rarely and, indeed, even when such questions are included in University Entrance Scholarship examinations, they tend to be ignored by the majority of candidates.