This is part one of a two-part SMSG Programed Algebra Text for high school students. The general plan of the course is to build upon the student's experience with arithmetic. The student is initially led to extract from his or her experience the fundamental properties of addition and multiplication. The text then introduces negative real numbers and extends the fundamental operations to develop the real number system. Chapter topics include: sets and the number line; numerals and variables; sentences; properties of operations; open sentences and English sentences; the real numbers; properties of addition; properties of multiplication; multiplicative inverse; properties of order; and subtraction and division. (MP)