That's a very illogical heat selection menu. Does it correspond to some arcane and specific form of circuitry?

According to Frigidaire literature of the day, this placement was VERY intentional.  The 3-wire monotube RadianTube elements (used from 1949-1959) were notoriously slow to heat up, especially on the lower temperatures where they did not receive full voltage.  Part of learning the "knack" of cooking effectively on these (which my grandmother and mother did until the early 1980s) was that ALL cooking operations begin on HIGH and then move to a lower temperature once the desired temperature was achieved.  

I remember that it took my mother a while back in the early 80s to adjust to her new Roper-built Kenmore range with its full-240 volt Calrod-style elements on infinite heat switches.  

Here is a statement to that effect from a 1955 range owner's manual:

These wide RadianTube burner elements had 2 separate elements in them that ran parallel to each other with a third return wire.  Through the 5 position heat switch 240 OR 120 volts were introduced across various combinations of the elements.  On this particular set, the 8" unit would consume 2050 watts when both elements were connected to 240 volts in parallel and the 6" element would consume 1450 watts.  Here is the detail:

Thank you for the information and the diagrams. I learn so much from you guys.