It would scarcely inform my readers to assure them, that, when I was at
College, my mathematical tutor shook his head, and dubbed me a stupid
fellow. Whatever stress might be laid on the multiplication and pence
tables by the sedate shop-keepers of State-street and Cornhill, it
always appeared to me that a scholar could attain the object of his
mission to the university, without any assistance from the four first
rules. Hence, I was more ashamed to be surprised solving a sum in Pike,
than a reputed virgin would be to have the unchaste poems of _Rochester_
plucked from her pillow. I contented myself with studying the ways of
men and the works of Roman and English wits, without gaping with a
foolish face of wonder, when told of the “Square of the Hypothenuse,”
and the miracles that compound interest would perform in a term of
years. Geometrical progression was not half so delightful to me as
vehicular progression in a crazy Charlestown-car. That portion of
arithmetic among merchants called fellowship, or company, I left to them
to ascertain their shares of a cargo of sugar and molasses by; while the
rules of good fellowship I made familiar both to my conception and
practice. In fine, those of my prudent friends who observed the lankness
of my purse, long before the expiration of a College term, merrily
remarked, that REDUCTION was the only part of arithmetic in which I made
a figure.
This avowed neglect of a darling study, so offended the lovers of
straight lines, that every moment they could steal from their diagrams
they employed in prognosticating my future fortune. They would sketch on
the paper covers of EUCLID perspective views of my dilapidated estate;
and by rhombus, rhomboid, and trapezium, barbarous terms, such as are
“a misery to hear,” they would conjure away my goods and chattles.
Those, who descending from the heights of abstraction, condescended to
become mere mortals again, and to converse upon sublunary topics, were
continually quoting and applying to me that elegant adage “of bringing
one’s noble to a nine-pence,” &c. In vain I endeavoured to defend my
practice, and to apologize for my disbelief in Euclid’s infallibility.
In vain I suggested, that many of the brightest geniuses successfully
clambered up the rugged steeps of Fame, without employing the nine
digits, as pioneers, to smooth the way: that Shakespeare, with whom, as
Cicero observes of Plato, I would rather _err_, than think right with
all the philosophers, was not only a novice in the doctrine of “nought
and carry one,” but frankly indulges a laugh of contempt at
computation:--that in Othello, when Iago informs his Venitian dupe of
Cassio’s unjust preferment to a lieutenancy, and is asked “what is he?”
the contemptuous response is “forsooth a great arithmetician!” That in
Love’s Labour Lost, a pert page demands of Armado “how many is one
thrice told?” the solemn knight replies “I am ill at reckoning, it fits
the spirit of a tapster:” that Lord Lyttleton the elder, a _man of
business_, emphasizing the phrase, honoured by his prince with a place
in the exchequer and in the department of finance, could not, as we are
assured by his son, count twenty pounds in different British coins; that
the Dean of St. Patrick’s, whose sterling sense and humour has pleased
and informed men more than all the works of all the mathematicians,
employed eight hours in a day in reading historians and poets, and
composing the Tale of a Tub, and was refused by the university of
Dublin, a degree, because he lampooned Locke and derided the ærial
speculations of a mathematician. All these shining examples, like
Haman’s prosperity, “availed me nothing,” and the sticklers for science
told me that I could not give directions to a carpenter without
understanding--how shall I write so unpoetical a word--without
understanding _parallelograms_.
Having thus far, in jocular phrase, discussed this _grave_ subject,
I now seriously declare, it is not my wish to abrogate any branches of
this recondite science. I am not possessed with such a Quixotish spirit
of innovation, as to desire all concerned forthwith to make proclamation
for mathematics and cousin german arithmetic to depart; but
good-naturedly to deride that mode of education, which neglecting, or
partially studying, eloquence, poetry, history, the classics, and the
world, devotes long and exclusive attention to things abstracted and
foreign from men’s business and bosoms. That great and universal
scholar, Dr. Johnson, whose authority is of no trivial weight,
decisively pronounces that this science and the knowledge which it
requires and includes, is not the great and frequent business of life.
It is of rare emergence. We are perpetually moralists, but we are
geometricians only by chance. One may live long with a man and not
discern his skill in hydrostatics, or astronomy, but his moral and
prudential character immediately appears. The rigid Knox, who is a
strenuous advocate for the severest school discipline, confesses, that a
man may be very liberally educated, without much skill in this branch of
learning. I remember reading, not many years since, a preface of Dr.
Cheyne’s to one of his medical tracts, wherein, after describing his
devotion to triangles, &c. he pathetically deplores his waste of time,
and adds, “that in these exquisitely bewitching speculations, gentlemen
of liberal leisure may riot; but for men of general learning, business,
and the world, they are too empty and ærial.” My readers will perhaps
yawn at these multiplied citations; but this is a science, supported so
much by authority and opinion, that I must oppose it with equal arms.
We are magisterially told that this study, _of all others_, most closely
fixes the attention. An argument shallow, untrue, and easily vanquished.
Any object that engrosses the mind, will induce a habit of attention.
Now I can warrantably assert, that a description from Virgil, a scene
from Shakespeare, Robertson’s narrative of the decollation of Mary, or
any striking passage from authors of polite literature, will accomplish
this purpose. Why should the demonstrations of Euclid arrogate this
honour to themselves? Have they an _exclusive privilege_ of enchanting
the mind, or are they invested with a talismanic charm by which
attention is at once conjured into mathematical circles? Addison
wondered how _rational_ beings could for hours play with painted bits of
paper; but he was manifestly a novice in whist, a game which, regularly
played, is an unremitting exercise of two of the noblest intellectual
powers, memory and judgment. The acute Hume, when jaded with
metaphysical research, invigorated his powers with a cheerful RUBBER.
From a fashionable amusement he derived that benefit which the
worshippers of Euclid would confine to their God. In fine, a _mere_
mathematician, without being a more cogent reasoner, is less learned,
less eloquent, and less courtly than the Beauclercs, whose superficial
talents he contemns. He is a solemn, absent, unaccommodating mortal.
Better therefore to imitate Cardinal de Retz and Chesterfield; better to
study the useful and the pleasant, than to dream away life over the
symbols and negative quantities of algebra.
I proposed to animadvert next on the influence that arithmetical minutiæ
gradually obtained over the heart. I was about adventuring to censure
even the great Dr. Franklin, for insisting too much upon the mint,
annise, and cummin of computation. I wished to brand avarice, and to
deny the doctrine of “uttermost farthings.” But I recollected that every
penurious parent, who prescribes as a horn-book lesson to his son, that
“scoundrel maxim” a penny saved is a penny got, would cry--shame! The
world, quoth prudence, will not bear it; ’tis a penny getting, pound
hoarding world--I yielded; and shelter myself in my garret against that
mob of misers and worldlings I see gathering to hoot me.
* * * * *