During the 20th century, the secondary school mathematics teaching in China had been developing from the an old-style private school form with individual instruction to classroom teaching with Chinese characteristics, which experienced three stages of development; the stage for the formation of modern teaching system (1902-1949), the stage for development (1950-1976), and the stage for innovation (1977-2000). The characteristics and journey for the transformation will exert great for reference and effects for the reform of secondary school mathematics teaching nowadays.