  This paper wants to show how practical geometry, created to give a concrete
help to people involved in trade, in land-surveying and even in astronomy,
underwent a transformation that underlined its didactical value and turned it
first into a way of teaching via problem solving and then into an
experimental-intuitive teaching that could be an alternative to the
deductive-rational teaching of geometry. This evolution will be highlighted
using textbooks that proposed alternative presentations of geometry.
