Memorabilia Mathematica; or, the Philomath's Quotation-Book
Science
Memorabilia Mathematica; or, the Philomath's Quotation-Book
Mathematics; Mathematics -- Quotations, maxims, etc.
There are, in fact, a mass of mental and moral faculties that can
be put in full play only by instruction in mathematics; and they
would be made still more available if the teaching was directed
so as to leave free play to the personal work of the student.
--BERTHELOT, M. P. E. M.
_Science as an Instrument of Education;
Popular Science Monthly (1897), p. 253._
=439.= Mathematical knowledge, therefore, appears to us of value
not only in so far as it serves as means to other ends, but for
its own sake as well, and we behold, both in its systematic
external and internal development, the most complete and
purest logical mind-activity, the embodiment of the highest
intellect-esthetics.--PRINGSHEIM, ALFRED.
_Ueber Wert und angeblichen Unwert der
Mathematik; Jahresbericht der Deutschen
Mathematiker Vereinigung, Bd. 13, p.
381._
=440.= The advantages which mathematics derives from the peculiar
nature of those relations about which it is conversant, from its
simple and definite phraseology, and from the severe logic so
admirably displayed in the concatenation of its innumerable
theorems, are indeed immense, and well entitled to separate and
ample illustration.--STEWART, DUGALD.
_Philosophy of the Human Mind, Part 2,
chap. 2, sect. 3._
=441.= I do not intend to go deeply into the question how far
mathematical studies, as the representatives of conscious logical
reasoning, should take a more important place in school
education. But it is, in reality, one of the questions of the
day. In proportion as the range of science extends, its system
and organization must be improved, and it must inevitably come
about that individual students will find themselves compelled to
go through a stricter course of training than grammar is in a
position to supply. What strikes me in my own experience with
students who pass from our classical schools to scientific and
medical studies, is first, a certain laxity in the application of
strictly universal laws. The grammatical rules, in which they
have been exercised, are for the most part followed by long lists
of exceptions; accordingly they are not in the habit of relying
implicitly on the certainty of a legitimate deduction from a
strictly universal law. Secondly, I find them for the most part
too much inclined to trust to authority, even in cases where they
might form an independent judgment. In fact, in philological
studies, inasmuch as it is seldom possible to take in the whole
of the premises at a glance, and inasmuch as the decision of
disputed questions often depends on an æsthetic feeling for
beauty of expression, or for the genius of the language,
attainable only by long training, it must often happen that the
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