The Story of Lewis Carroll: Told for Young People by the Real Alice in WonderlandBowman, Isa
History
The Story of Lewis Carroll: Told for Young People by the Real Alice in Wonderland
Bowman, Isa
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography -- Juvenile literature; Carroll, Lewis, 1832-1898 -- Juvenile literature
There he won great distinction as a scholar of mathematics, and wrote many
abstruse and learned books, very different from "Alice in Wonderland."
There is a tale that when the Queen had read "Alice in Wonderland" she was
so pleased that she asked for more books by the same author. Lewis Carroll
was written to, and back, with the name of Charles Dodgson on the
title-page, came a number of the very dryest books about Algebra and
Euclid that you can imagine.
Still, even in mathematics his whimsical fancy was sometimes suffered to
peep out, and little girls who learnt the rudiments of calculation at his
knee found the path they had imagined so thorny set about with roses by
reason of the delightful fun with which he would turn a task into a joy.
But when the fun was over the little girl would find that she had learnt
the lesson (all unknowingly) just the same. Happy little girls who had
such a master. The old rhyme--
"Multiplication is vexation,
Division is as bad,
The rule of three doth puzzle me,
And Practice drives me mad,"
would never need to have been written had all arithmetic lessons been like
the arithmetic lessons given by Charles Dodgson to his little friends.
As a lecturer to his grown-up pupils he was also surprisingly lucid, and
under his deft treatment the knottiest of problems were quickly smoothed
out and made easy for his hearers to comprehend. "I always hated
mathematics at school," an ex-pupil of his told me a little while ago,
"but when I went up to Oxford I learnt from Mr. Dodgson to look upon my
mathematics as the most delightful of all my studies. His lectures were
never dry."
For twenty-six years he lectured at Oxford, finally giving up his post in
1881. From that time to the time of his death he remained in his college,
taking no actual part in the tuition, but still enjoying the Fellowship
that he had won in 1861.
This is an official account, a brief sketch of an intensely interesting
life. It tells little save that Lewis Carroll was a clever mathematician
and a sympathetic teacher; it shall be my work to present him as he was
from a more human point of view.
Lewis Carroll was a man of medium height. When I knew him his hair was a
silver-grey, rather longer than it was the fashion to wear, and his eyes
were a deep blue. He was clean shaven, and, as he walked, always seemed a
little unsteady in his gait. At Oxford he was a well-known figure. He was
a little eccentric in his clothes. In the coldest weather he would never
wear an overcoat, and he had a curious habit of always wearing, in all
seasons of the year, a pair of grey and black cotton gloves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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