ABSTRACT
I also taught the standard undergraduate course in algebra. Following Cornell tradition, I used Introduction to Higher Algebra by Maxime Böcher (formerly of Harvard), an older text with emphasis on the algebra needed for classical higher geometry. Algebraic geometry was a leading specialty at Cornell, led by the veteran professor H. B. Snyder. Graduate students took courses in both analytic and synthetic projective geometry-algebraic surfaces lived on projective space, so that space had to be familiar. I gained an added appreciation of the many uses of algebra through the Böcher text, and I learned something of algebraic geometry from Robert Walker, who was also a new instructor.
