[1] During World War II, Kline was posted to the Signal Corps (United States Army) stationed at Belmar, New Jersey.
He repeatedly stressed the need to teach the applications and usefulness of mathematics rather than expecting students to enjoy it for its own sake.
Similarly, he urged that mathematical research concentrate on solving problems posed in other fields rather than building structures of interest only to other mathematicians.
[2]Morris Kline was a protagonist in the curriculum reform in mathematics education that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, a period including the programs of the new math.
[4] The rebuttal for this article was by James H. Zant; it asserted that Kline had "a general lack of knowledge of what was going on in schools with reference to textbooks, teaching, and curriculum."
In 1973, St. Martin's Press contributed to the dialogue by publishing Kline's critique, Why Johnny Can't Add: the Failure of the New Math.
The book recapitulates the debates from Mathematics Teacher, with Kline conceding some progress: He cites Howard Fehr of Columbia University who sought to unify the subject through its general concepts: sets, operations, mappings, relations, and structures in the Secondary School Mathematics Curriculum Improvement Study.
Kline argues that the onus on professors in the United States to conduct research misdirects the scholarly method that characterizes good teaching.
[9] But a closer reading shows Kline calling mathematics a "part of man's efforts to understand and master his world", and he sees that role in a broad spectrum of sciences.