I'll agree with thesis that it wasn't uncommon about 100 years ago as a standard text, and agree that that was about when it stopped being common.
If you read the preface to the 1888 version, you'll see: "From first to last we have kept in mind the undoubted fact that a very small proportion of those who study Elementary Geometry, and student it with profit, are destined to become mathematicians in any special sense; and that, to a large majority of students, Euclid is intended to serve not so much as a first lesson in mathematical reasoning, as the first, and sometimes the only, model of formal argument presented in an elementary education."
In the forward to the new edition, it again refers to "elementary teachers." According to http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/chapter03.html "the Elementary School Code of 1860 had fixed the leaving age for elementary schools at 12." This is in the UK. I don't know if the teaching of the Elements only for upper and upper-middle class students, or if it included a wider range of students.
This text book of the Elements was first published in 1888, updated in 1900, and with reprints every year or two until (at least) 1915 http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24198679M/Text-book_of_Euclid....
I'll agree with thesis that it wasn't uncommon about 100 years ago as a standard text, and agree that that was about when it stopped being common.
If you read the preface to the 1888 version, you'll see: "From first to last we have kept in mind the undoubted fact that a very small proportion of those who study Elementary Geometry, and student it with profit, are destined to become mathematicians in any special sense; and that, to a large majority of students, Euclid is intended to serve not so much as a first lesson in mathematical reasoning, as the first, and sometimes the only, model of formal argument presented in an elementary education."
In the forward to the new edition, it again refers to "elementary teachers." According to http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/chapter03.html "the Elementary School Code of 1860 had fixed the leaving age for elementary schools at 12." This is in the UK. I don't know if the teaching of the Elements only for upper and upper-middle class students, or if it included a wider range of students.
BTW, here's an advocacy piece for bringing the Elements back as part of the core curriculum - http://www.kysu.edu/NR/rdonlyres/0B03B73A-777B-4571-A554-7DE... .