On the whole, however, the Harvard selection of basal propositions is perhaps as satisfactory as any that has been made, even though it appears to lack a "factor of safety," and it is probable that any further reduction would be unwise. What, now, has been the effect of all these efforts? What teacher or school would be content to follow any one of these syllabi exactly? What textbook writer would feel it safe to limit his regular propositions to those in any one syllabus? These questions suggest their own answers, and the effect of all this effort seems at first thought to have been so slight as to be entirely out of proportion to the end in view. This depends, however, on what this end is conceived to be. If the purpose has been to cut out a very large number of the propositions that are found in Euclid's plane geometry, the effort has not been successful. We may reduce this number to about one hundred thirty, but in general, whatever a syllabus may give as a minimum, teachers will favor a larger number than is suggested by the Harvard list, for the purpose of exercise in the reading of mathematics if for no other reason. The French geometer, Lacroix, who wrote more than a century ago, proposed to limit the propositions to those needed to prove other important ones, and those needed in practical mathematics. If to this we should add those that are used in treating a considerable range of exercises, we should have a list of about one hundred thirty. But this is not the real purpose of these syllabi, or at most it seems like a relatively unimportant one. The purpose that has been attained is to stop the indefinite increase in the number of propositions that would follow from the recent developments in the geometry of the triangle and circle, and of similar modern topics, if some such counter-movement as this did not take place. If the result is, as it probably will be, to let the basal propositions of Euclid remain about as they always have been, as the standards for beginners, the syllabi will have accomplished a worthy achievement. If, in addition, they furnish an irreducible minimum of propositions to which a student may have access if he desires it, on an examination, as was intended in the case of the Harvard and the New England Association syllabi, the achievement may possibly be still more worthy.