"Mathematics" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bacon and his followers. Very shortly after the Restoration the Royal Society was founded for the promotion of research and scientific knowledge, and it was during this period that Sir Isaac Newton (a man in every respect admirable) made his vastly important discoveries in physics, mathematics, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... defects I recollect in his character may not have been so apparent. Bracebridge came back quiet and gentlemanly as ever. He had not been idle during the holidays. It is extraordinary how much he had seen, and done, and learned. He had been reading pretty hard both Greek and Latin, and Mathematics. He had made a tour through the manufacturing districts, the commencement of a series his father promised to take him, to show him the true source of English wealth. He had had a very pleasant yachting expedition, and had learned a good ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... they went so far as to maintain that all their learning came to them originally from Babylon, and that the most famous scholars of Greece, Pherecydes of Scyros, Democritus of Abdera, and Pythagoras,* owed the rudiments of philosophy, mathematics, physics, and astrology to the school ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... a person did not obtain the classical medal, he was thrown back among the totally undistinguished; and it was not allowable to become a candidate for the classical medal, unless you had taken a respectable degree in mathematics. Coleridge had not the least taste for these, and here his case was hopeless; so that he despaired of a Fellowship, and gave up, what in his heart he coveted, college honours, and a college life. He had ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... Pierre proposed to himself the tormenting enigma, harder, he thought, to solve than any problem of mathematics,—for it was the riddle of his life: "What thoughts are truly in the heart of Amelie de Repentigny respecting me? Does she recollect me only as her brother's companion, who may possibly have some claim upon her friendship, but none upon her love?" His imagination pictured ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... I become a great mathematician?" What must be my answer? "You must have a natural aptitude and capacity for mathematics to be a great mathematician. If you have not that capacity, you cannot be a great mathematician in this life." But this does not mean that you cannot learn any mathematics. To be a great mathematician you must be born with a special ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... The Art of Calculation by Drawing Lines, applied to Mathematics, Theoretical Mechanics, and Engineering, including the Kinetics and Dynamics of Machinery, &c. By ROBERT ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... temples; he was the artisan god—Nun-ura, "god of the potter"; Kuski-banda, "god of goldsmiths", &c.—the divine patron of the arts and crafts. "Ea knoweth everything", chanted the hymn maker. He taught the people how to form and use alphabetic signs and instructed them in mathematics: he gave them their code of laws. Like the Egyptian artisan god Ptah, and the linking deity Khnumu, Ea was the "potter or moulder of gods and man". Ptah moulded the first man on his potter's wheel: he also moulded the sun and moon; he shaped the universe and hammered out the copper sky. ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... commonplaces, Casanova told his neighbor that he had been informed of her intellectual attainments, and asked what was her chosen subject of study. Her chief interest, she rejoined, was in the higher mathematics, to which she had been introduced by Professor Morgagni, the renowned teacher at the university of Bologna. Casanova expressed his surprise that so charming a young lady should have an interest, certainly exceptional, in a dry and difficult subject. ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... task for so-called 'formal' education[4] [the education tending to develop the mental faculties, as opposed to 'material' education,[5] which is intended to deal only with the acquisition of facts, e.g. history, mathematics, etc.], and one of the utmost value: but what do we find in the public school—that is to say, in the head-quarters of formal education? He who understands how to apply what he has heard here will also know what to think of the modern public school as a so-called educational ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... solicits the sanction of the Legislature. Practical seamanship and the art of navigation may be acquired on the cruises of the squadrons which from time to time are dispatched to distant seas, but a competent knowledge even of the art of shipbuilding, the higher mathematics, and astronomy; the literature which can place our officers on a level of polished education with the officers of other maritime nations; the knowledge of the laws, municipal and national, which in their intercourse with foreign states and ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... occupied herself with cashing in the chips which Nick brought to her—a task which she performed with amazing correctness and speed considering that her knowledge of the science of mathematics had been derived solely from the handling of money at The Polka. Now she went over to Sonora, who sat ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... medallions. From them they get the model faces and heads of the Greek and Roman, the copies of lost statues, the folds of the chlamys and the graceful sweep of the toga, the eagles and ensigns, rams and trophies, the altars, idols, and sacrifices, the Olympian games, and the instruments of music, mathematics, and mechanics. They reveal the secrets of a thousand antiquated names and ceremonies, which but for the engraver's chronicle ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a report given by President White of the University of Michigan—an institution that admits students of both sexes—out of 1,300 attendants of the Greek class, the best scholar was a young lady. In mathematics and other scientific studies, girls had the highest standing. Furthermore, the profession of teaching in this country is principally in the hands of women; which proves that the possibility of cultivating the female mind to a high stage of ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... devotion to some particular study makes men illiberal to other branches of knowledge. Metaphysicians and physiologists who have never taken the trouble to master mathematical principles dogmatically denounce the influence of mathematics. Eminent classics and mathematicians have too frequently sneered at each other's studies. No one was ever more free from this kind of bigotry than Mr. Mill, and it probably constitutes one of the main causes of his influence. Some years ago I happened ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... professor of geometry and mathematics, and possessed of considerable theoretical knowledge of military architecture, Father Griffen had given most excellent advice to the successive governors of Martinique on the construction of ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... nature, that it is now the town and country talk, and, they say, is most exactly true. The Duke of York himself said that of his playing at trap- ball is true, and told several other stories of him. Then to Brouncker's house, and there sat and talked, I asking many questions in mathematics to my Lord, which he do me the pleasure to ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... of this? asked Homenas. Though, methinks, after all, it is but little, if we consider that France, the most Christian, is the only nurse the see of Rome has. However, find me in the whole world a book, whether of philosophy, physic, law, mathematics, or other humane learning, nay, even, by my God, of the Holy Scripture itself, will draw as much money thence? None, none, psha, tush, blurt, pish; none can. You may look till your eyes drop out of your head, nay, till doomsday in the afternoon, before you can find another of that energy; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... reduce the whole problem to a nice little exercise in mathematics, requiring only for its clear exposition some columns of figures and a few coloured diagrams to represent the different shades of public opinion. No better example of the dangers of a priori speculation could be adduced than this ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... watermelon as an illustration. So, the next morning when I reached Chicago, I had enough seeds weighed to learn that it would take about five thousand watermelon seeds to weigh a pound, and I estimated that the watermelon weighed about forty pounds. Then I applied mathematics to the watermelon. A few weeks before some one, I knew not who, had planted a little watermelon seed in the ground. Under the influence of sunshine and shower that little seed had taken off its coat and gone to work; ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... moment of illumination they had not been ashamed; but they had made no ungentlemanly fuss about the matter. Eight of that fifteen came from the same school, had gone through an entirely parallel education; some Greek linguistics, some elementary mathematics, some emasculated "science," a little history, a little reading in the silent or timidly orthodox English literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, all eight had imbibed the same dull gentlemanly tradition of behavior; essentially boyish, unimaginative—with ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... knowledge, and knew how to confine such inquiries within the bounds, and entwine them with the interests, of absolute monarchy, was productive of direct advantage to the state, whose ship-building and machine-making showed traces of the beneficial influence of Alexandrian mathematics; and not only so, but also rendered this new intellectual power—the most important and the greatest, which the Hellenic nation after its political dismemberment put forth—subservient, so far as it would consent ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy, are so distinct, that they require different teachers. One is sufficient for the former, but the latter must be subdivided, one for natural history, another for experimental Philosophy in general and a third for chemistry; in consequence of the great extension ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... who respectively represented the interests of Britain and America, were tremendous friends. Miss Rodgers was fair and rather plump and rosy-faced and calm, with a manner that parents described as "motherly," and a leaning towards mathematics as the basis of a sound education. Miss Morley, on the contrary, was thin and dark and excitable, and taught the English literature and the general knowledge classes, and was rumored—though this no doubt was libel—to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... University of Santo Domingo. It occupies the same building in the capital, adjoining the church of St. Dominic, where the old university was located. It confers degrees in five branches: law, medicine, pharmacy, dental surgery and mathematics and surveying. Practically all the lawyers of the Republic have graduated from this school. Most of the native pharmacists, also, have studied here. With reference to instruction in medicine and surgery, and in dentistry, the institution is handicapped by the lack ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... There is no human nature about mathematics. They work everything to a fixed conclusion that must result. Life is not like that; what ought to be a square comes out a right angle, and x always equals an unknown quantity, which is never ascertained till you ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... either to the discretion of the professors, or to the talent and industry of their pupils. In the first place, the youth, to be admitted, must show that he has attended one of the public schools for three years, at the least. He must bring with him also a slender stock of German, arithmetic, mathematics, Greek, and Latin; which for six years more he labours only to increase. Then comes a fresh distribution of the students, who, throughout these protracted periods, have gone on together; but, who now ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... rather think so," John affirmed. "Indirect ones, of course, and I hope inoffensive, but fiery as live coals. In the third person, you know. I've given her two and two; she has, you may be sure, enough skill in mathematics to put ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... have I done? Why, look here. The twins think everything of Professor Duke, and I am sure Carol deliberately neglects her science lessons in order to be kept in after school by him. But though she hates mathematics,—my subject,—she works at it desperately so I can't keep her in. She sits on Mr. Duke's table and chats with him by the hour. But she passes me up with a curt, 'Good night, ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... Prince Edward, and granddaughter of John the Third. She was young and beautiful; she could talk both Latin and Greek, besides being well versed in philosophy, mathematics and theology. She had the scriptures at her tongue's end, both the old dispensation and the new, and could quote from the fathers with the promptness of a bishop. She was so strictly orthodox that, on being compelled by stress ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... not much moved by this exploit, because, as I have hinted, the Union was not in our line. We rowed and danced and drove tandem; never preached, except to election mobs. We quite agreed with Cospatric that Classics and Mathematics, and Natural Science as she is taught at Cambridge, are one and all of them useless burdens, not worth the gathering; but we were not prepared to say with him that we hungered after the acquisition of French, German, Spanish, Norsk, and ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... LUDVIG HEIBERG (December 14, 1791-August 25, 1860), the leading Danish dramatist and critic of his time, an esthetic genius, with, however, the stamp of the man of the world always on his life and works. He early studied mathematics and natural science, medicine and philology, Danish and foreign literature, and was also very musical. He was uncertain whether to become a poet and esthetic critic, a physician, or a natural scientist, or ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... sickness had kept him out of school for some time, he was the more earnest to learn during his apprenticeship—particularly mathematics, since he desired to become, among other things, a good surveyor. He was obliged to work from ten to twelve hours a day at the forge, but while he was blowing the bellows he employed his mind in doing sums in his head. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... course of his studies, Dick Sand showed a particular liking for geography, for voyages, while waiting till he was old enough to learn that branch of mathematics which relates to navigation. Then to this theoretical portion of his instruction, he did not neglect to join the practical. It was as novice that he was able to embark for the first time on the "Pilgrim." A good seaman ought to understand fishing as well as navigation. It is a good preparation ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... so debas'd and hard, no stone Was hard enough to touch them on: And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em, The ignorant for current took 'em, That had the orator who once Did fill his mouth with pebble-stones When he harangu'd but known his phrase, He would have us'd no other ways. In mathematics he was greater Then Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater: For he, by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale; Resolve by sines and tangents, straight, If bread and butter wanted weight; And wisely tell what hour o' th' day The clock does strike by algebra. Beside, ...
— English Satires • Various
... cutting them by means of their panga. A panga, parenthetically, is the safari man's substitute for axe, shovel, pick, knife, sickle, lawn-mower, hammer, gatling gun, world's library of classics, higher mathematics, grand opera, and toothpicks. It looks rather like a machete with a very broad end and a slight curved back. A good man can do extraordinary things with it. Indeed, at this moment, two boys are with this apparently clumsy implement delicately peeling some of the ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... I am sorry. I have forgotten myself so soon: what shall I do when I get into the intricacies of mathematics, physics, and mechanics to explain to you ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... does what the politicians handle now. Dividing whatever might reach the people, without reference to those who produced it, could yield the average man no more than he gets now. That's very simple mathematics. One of the saddest sights of the day is the number of good people to whom these facts ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... way," he suggested suavely. "Your highly trained mind observed, correlated, and memorized the most intricate data and mathematics, meanwhile guiding your social relations with your former colleagues so as to remain unsuspected while stealing their most cherished secret. Such a feat demonstrates ability ...
— Irresistible Weapon • Horace Brown Fyfe
... themselves why there is no revolt against the dogmas of mathematics though there is one against the dogmas of religion. It is not that the mathematical dogmas are more comprehensible. The law of inverse squares is as incomprehensible to the common man as the Athanasian creed. It is not that science is free from legends, witchcraft, miracles, ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... a plume stuck in his Scotch cap. The Swedish lady was replaced by a young Swiss tutor, who was versed in gymnastics to perfection. Music, as a pursuit unworthy of a man, was discarded. The natural sciences, international law, mathematics, carpentry, after Jean-Jacques Rousseau's precept, and heraldry, to encourage chivalrous feelings, were what the future "man" was to be occupied with. He was waked at four o'clock in the morning, splashed at once with cold water and set to running round a high pole ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... and looks over it frequently in a day, when this disease returns upon him; and thus, by counteracting the maniacal hallucination, wisely prevents the increase of his insanity. Another medical person, in London, is said to have cured himself of this disease by studying mathematics with great attention; which exertions of the mind relieved the pain of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... rare good fortune to meet my old friend Doctor Congar, with whom I had studied chemistry and mathematics fifteen years ago. He exalted San Gabriel above all other inhabitable valleys, old and new, on the face of the globe. "I have rambled," said he, "ever since we left college, tasting innumerable climates, and trying the advantages offered ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... candle-lights;"—and there can be little doubt that the clearer and important truths are made, the less controversy they will excite among fair and rational men, and the less passion and fancy accordingly can eloquence infuse into the discussion of them. Mathematics have produced no quarrels among mankind—it is by the mysterious and the vague, that temper as well as imagination is most roused. In proof of this while the acknowledged clearness almost to truism, which the leading principles of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... say that Einstein was on the fringe of discovering the theory involved when he died, but was having trouble with the mathematics. Remember how Einstein always complained that he was really a ...
— Warning from the Stars • Ron Cocking
... world given me The high title of "the learned," Since 'gainst time and time's oblivion The rich pencils of Timanthes, The bright marbles of Lysippus, Universally proclaim me Through earth's bounds the great Basilius. You already know the sciences That I feel my mind most given to Are the subtle mathematics, By whose means my clear prevision Takes from rumour its slow office, Takes from time its jurisdiction Of, each day, new facts disclosing; Since in algebraic symbols When the fate of future ages On my tablets I see written, I anticipate time in telling What my science hath predicted. ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... of ethical doctrine could admit the legitimacy of murder for any object whatever? It is as impossible as a theory of mathematics admitting that ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... her; perhaps I was fascinated myself in my folly. But she won't care a straw whether it's you or I, so long as somebody sits beside her, sighing.... I can't explain the position, brother... look here, you are good at mathematics, and working at it now... begin teaching her the integral calculus; upon my soul, I'm not joking, I'm in earnest, it'll be just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh for a whole year together. I talked to her once for two days at a time about the Prussian House of ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... these would-be reformers are simply notoriety-seekers. I believe in manual training, but Latin and mathematics always will be the backbone of sound Americanism, no matter what these faddists advocate—heaven knows what they do want—knitting, I suppose, and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause; viz. that though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... office," said Gay, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that they were alone. "I suppose it is perfectly natural that she should. When you're with Miss White, she makes you feel that there's nothing in life to live for but Latin. When you're with Miss Hooker, mathematics is the chief end of man. With Professor Stroebel the violin is the one and only. So of course a professional nurse is in duty bound to make hygiene the first consideration. Don't listen to them, listen to me. I change my mind a dozen ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... perhaps ever will possess, are requested to observe, that On Thursday Evening June 21st, 1781, and for two more Evenings successively, The following curious Collection of valuable and scarce BOOKS, containing History, Biography, Voyages, Travels, Philosophy, Mathematics, Periodical Papers, Letters, Essays, Arts, Sciences, Novels and Adventures, with Poetic and Dramatic Entertainment, by the most celebrated ancient and modern Authors, who have explored, investigated, and attempted to illuminate the ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... learning, and he was sincerely sorry that his other college engagements made it quite impossible. Before coming to college he thought that it might be practicable to mingle a little Latin and Greek, and possibly a touch of history and mathematics, with the more pressing duties of college life; but unless you could put more hours into the day, or more days into the week, he really did not see how it ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... ibn-Rushd] (1126-1198), Arabian philosopher, was born at Cordova. His early life was occupied in mastering the curriculum of theology, jurisprudence, mathematics, medicine and philosophy, under the approved teachers of the time. The years of his prime fell during the last period of Mahommedan rule in Spain under the Almohades (q.v.). It was Ibn-Tufail (Abubacer), the philosophic vizier of Yusef, who ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... harmony or of the essential features of modern music.[233] Till the fifteenth century little progress appears to have been made in the science or the practice of music; but since that era it has advanced with marvellous rapidity, its progress being curiously parallel with that of mathematics, inasmuch as great musical geniuses appeared suddenly among different nations, equal in their possession of this special faculty to ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the natural and physical sciences, including mathematics, and of technology, the period shall be ...
— The Universal Copyright Convention (1988) • Coalition for Networked Information
... exercise time. Now the "highflyer" I have referred to did not belong to this class, but except in his principles and habits and tastes, his education was quite equal to theirs. He spoke German and French fluently, knew Latin and Greek, a smattering of Italian, and the higher branches of mathematics. What first surprised me about him was his pretended intimacy with some German merchants of the highest standing I knew in London, and with whom I had done business. To know such men I afterwards found was part of his profession. He could tell me not only ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... all very well," said the big young man, whose name appeared to be Burrows. "Of course, in a sense, science, like mathematics or the violin, can only be perfectly understood by specialists. Still, the rudiments may be of public use. Greenwood here," indicating the little man in the blazer, "doesn't know one note of music from another. Still, he knows something. He knows enough to take off his hat when they play ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... at Annapolis, Maryland, and rector of St. Ann's parish. He was of imposing person, and great dignity and force of character. He was, moreover, a man of genius, and of varied and profound learning, eminently versed in mathematics and natural sciences, abounding in classical lore, endowed with a vast memory, and gifted with a concise, clear, and graceful style; rich and fluent in conversation, but without the least pretension to oratory and wholly incapable of extempore speaking. He was removed from the ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... act which brings them within that field, translates the responsibility (because the free agency) from themselves to their seconds. The whole questio vexata, therefore, reduces itself to these logical moments, (to speak the language of mathematics:) the two parties mainly concerned in the case of duelling, are Society and the Seconds. The first, by authorising such a mode of redress; the latter, by conducting it. Now, I presume, it will be thought hopeless to arraign Society at the ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... said he with a polite pleased bow of thanks. Mr. Lindsay was little less astonished than the Duke of Argyle, when his gardener claimed to be the owner of a Latin work on mathematics. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... no doubts as to the ultimate issue of the conflict, for, in a letter to his wife's sister, Mrs. Goodrich, of May 2, 1862, he reduces it to mathematics:— ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... witnesses, if the Senatus see good, and always the report of the said examiners to be minuted and signed, and to govern the appointments made, and to be recorded therewith. More specially I appoint that five of the 'John Welsh Bursaries' shall be given for the best proficiency in mathematics—I would rather say 'in mathesis,' if that were a thing to be judged of from competition—but practically above all in pure geometry, such being perennial, the symptom not only of steady application, but of a clear, methodic intellect, and offering in all epochs good promise for all manner ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... and when the Doctor saw him approaching the house, he used to put away Sam's lesson-books with a sigh and wait for better times. The Captain had himself undertaken his son's education, and, being a somewhat dreamy man, excessively attached to mathematics, Jim had got, altogether, a very remarkable education indeed; which, however, is hardly to our purpose just now. Brentwood, I must say, was a widower, and a kindhearted, easy-going man; he had, besides, a daughter, who was away at school. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... herbs that have the property of healing wounds, for a knight-errant must not go looking for some one to cure him at every step. He must be an astronomer, so as to know by the stars how many hours of the night have passed, and what clime and quarter of the world he is in. He must know mathematics, for at every turn some occasion for them will present itself to him; and, putting it aside that he must be adorned with all the virtues, cardinal and theological, to come down to minor particulars, he must, I say, be able to swim as well as Nicholas or Nicolao the Fish ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... this a joke, and, if so, where is the point of it? And then, as if not content with so much mystification, Mr. Whistler assured his ten o'clock audience that there was no such thing as nationality in art, and that you might as well speak of English mathematics as of English art. We do not stop to inquire if such answers contain one grain of truth; we know they do not—we stop to consider them because we know that the criticism of a creative artist never ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... the analysis of the process of reasoning, is a cultural study rather than a practical one, save in criticism both of one's own work and another's. More cultural, and at the same time more practical, is the study of exact reasoning in the form of some branch of mathematics. Abraham Lincoln, when he "rode the circuit" as a lawyer, carried with him a geometry, which he studied at every opportunity. To the mental training which it gave him was due his success not only as a lawyer, but also as a political orator. Every one of his speeches ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... students, and he bore off first prizes with ease, studying early and late that he might acquire the knowledge he loved. After leaving the University he gave himself to the acquirement of the German language, and studied Hebrew and higher mathematics. ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... Dauphin, and profited by his advice. They devoted themselves ardently to study, and gave up almost the whole of their time to it; they enabled themselves to write French correctly, and acquired a good knowledge of history. Italian, English, the higher branches of mathematics, turning and dialing, filled up in succession their leisure moments. Madame Adelaide, in particular, had a most insatiable desire to learn; she was taught to play upon all instruments, from the horn (will it be believed!) ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... the death of Professor Fisher were passed by Miss Catherine Beecher at Franklin, Mass., at the home of Professor Fisher's parents, where she taught his two sisters, studied mathematics with his brother Willard, and listened to Doctor Emmons' fearless and pitiless preaching. Hers was a mind too strong and buoyant to be crushed and prostrated by that which would have driven a weaker and less ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Halifax. He was now in receipt of an income which secured him due domestic comforts, and enabled him to remedy the defects of his early education. With the help of a grammar and a dictionary he mastered Italian. He also studied mathematics and the scientific theory of music, losing no opportunity of adding to ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... Touraine, France, March 31st, 1596; and died at Stockholm, Sweden, February 11th, 1650. From a pleasant student life of eight years in the Jesuit college at La Fleche, he went forth in his seventeenth year with unusual acquirements in mathematics and languages, but in deep dissatisfaction with the long dominant scholastic philosophy and the whole method prescribed for arriving at truth. In a strong youthful revolt, his first step was a decision ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... defects; namely, carelessness, lack of concentration and obstinacy in his ideas." "An island is a portion of land entirely surrounded by water; as Cuba." "The names of cities should always commence with a capital letter; e.g., New York, Paris." "The boy was proficient in one branch; viz., Mathematics." "No man is perfect; i.e., ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... the vain hope of gaining some of the great prizes is the cause of this demand. In order to have a better chance for some of the large prizes, some people purchase several tickets, and others small shares in a still greater number. There is not, however, a more certain proposition in mathematics, than that the more tickets you adventure upon, the more likely you are to be a loser. Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets, the nearer you approach to ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... subjects. A dusty old history was rummaged out also, and classical researches followed, in which papa's memory played him false more than once, calling forth rebukes from his severe young tutor. But he came to open disgrace over his mathematics, for he had no head for figures, and, not being a business man, had not troubled himself about the matter; so Harry, who was in fine practice, utterly routed him in mental arithmetic by giving him regular puzzlers, and when he got stuck offered no help, but shook his head and called ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... seventeenth century metaphysics had already been provided with a positive, a profane content (pace Descartes, Leibnitz etc.). It made discoveries in mathematics, physics, and other definite sciences which appeared to belong to it, but by the beginning of the eighteenth century this semblance had been destroyed. The positive sciences had broken away from it and mapped out ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... most earnestly protest against being suspected of what in me would be the intolerable impertinence of desiring to cast ridicule on these magnificent speculations, the grandeur of which I thoroughly appreciate so far as my scant mathematics enable me to follow them. I take exception to them only because the language in which they are couched seems to imply that operations, of whose nature one of the most powerful of human intellects could, at its utmost stretch, catch only a faint hazy ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... thrown away. Perhaps his needs turned out to be exceptional, but his existence was exceptional. Between 1850 and 1900 nearly every one's existence was exceptional. For success in the life imposed on him he needed, as afterwards appeared, the facile use of only four tools: Mathematics, French, German, and Spanish. With these, he could master in very short time any special branch of inquiry, and feel at home in any society. Latin and Greek, he could, with the help of the modern languages, learn more completely by the intelligent work of six weeks than in the six years he spent ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the most striking of these instances we may here append. A student relates that a professor had said to his class in mathematics, of which this student was a member, "'A question of great difficulty has been referred to me by a banker, a very complicated question of accounts, which they themselves have not been able to bring to a satisfactory issue, and they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... argument which we are considering, seems to us to be founded on an entire mistake. There are branches of knowledge with respect to which the law of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, when once a proposition has been demonstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every fresh story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure as the original foundation was. Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to the stock of truth. In the inductive sciences again, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Davie, my boy, the Greek, and Latin, and mathematics you are so eager for, are chiefly valuable to you as a means of discipline— as a means of preparing you for the work that is before you in the world. And I am not sure but that the discipline of little cares and uncongenial work that has come upon you this winter, ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... in his mind, he could date the acute stage of the present situation pretty accurately from the inception of her acquaintance with the young professor of mathematics. Leigh had disclosed a certain Western democracy that first evening, and had established immediately some sort of understanding with his hostess. The bishop had seen them together at Littleford's house, and had drawn his own conclusions. Divination of the hidden interests ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Mathematics is conversant with quantities and quantitative relations. The conception of quantity, therefore, if rigorously analyzed, will indicate a priori the natural and impassable boundaries of the science; while a subsequent ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... nothing a Stevens student can't do—nothing calling for brains," said Mr. Stuffer. "They get chock full of mathematics up there, so's they can engineer anything from a turbine plant to a pin where it's most needed, or a marriage factory. Anything that calls for brains is right in their line. If I ever get into any kind of trouble at all ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... dissimilarity of their characters. Jack took to ploughing and reaping, and prepared himself to till his paternal acres; while the other loitered negligently on in the path of learning, until he penetrated even into the confines of Latin and mathematics. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... forth; or if this may not be, give us half a grain of hydrogen, diffused through all space and invested with some of the minor attributes of matter; or if you cannot do this, give us an imponderable like electricity, or even the higher mathematics, but give us something or throw off the mask and tell us fairly out that it is your paid profession to hoodwink us on this matter if you can, and that you are but doing your best to earn an ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... themselves. Ten years ago only a voice here and there suggested the need of either. In 1885, at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Miss Sarah Harland, lecturer on Mathematics at Newnham College, insisted that educated gentlewomen must have larger opportunity for paying work. The three qualifications in all work she stated to be: (1) Organization on a large scale; (2) Permanency; (3) Giving returns ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... continuous movement by which the figure is described. No doubt, for greater strictness, all considerations of motion may be eliminated from mathematical processes; but the introduction of motion into the genesis of figures is nevertheless the origin of modern mathematics. We believe that if biology could ever get as close to its object as mathematics does to its own, it would become, to the physics and chemistry of organized bodies, what the mathematics of the moderns has proved to be in relation to ancient geometry. ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... playing was the fact that he was worried about his studies. He was taking only the required courses, seven in all, making necessary an attendance of sixteen hours each week; but Greek and mathematics were stumbling-blocks, and he was in daily fear lest he find himself forbidden to play football. He knew well enough where the trouble lay; he simply didn't give enough time to study. But, somehow, what with the all-absorbing ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... make men equal to transforming whole communities and even nations. Who can estimate the soul's conscious power? Who can measure the light and heat of last summer? Who can gather up the rays of the stars? Who can bring together the odors of last year's orchards? There are no mathematics for computing the influence of man's voluntary thought, affection and ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... only fourteen, but, in face of his spoiling, was ready for St. Paul's, where he was sent the next fall. He was bright-even brilliant in his prep school work. Mathematics, the sciences and history seemed almost play for him, while in languages, and especially in English, he did an unusual amount ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... One would think you had never been schooled in mathematics. Why, three is a magic figure. You can do plenty of amazing things with it. Don't you know that three is ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... No, indeed. Our last excitement was about the coat of our Professor of Mathematics. It was such a quizzical cut, we told Mrs. A., it was morally impossible for us to attend to the lesson, and study the problems, as long as the man ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... stiff mechanics, involving many technical terms, and some rather deep mathematics. These last, which would have puzzled me, seemed easy enough to him; all that he wanted was the explanations of the technical words, which I ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... be supposed that a mastery of mathematics and a finished education are necessary to understand the results of astronomical research. It took at first the highest power of mind to make the discoveries that are now laid at the feet of the lowliest. It took sublime faith, ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... the big boys. The division of the minimes included the eighth and seventh classes; the little boys formed the sixth, fifth, and fourth; the middle boys were classed as third and second; and the first class comprised the senior students—of philosophy, rhetoric, the higher mathematics, and chemistry. Each of these divisions had its own building, classrooms, and play-ground, in the large common precincts on to which the classrooms opened, and beyond which was ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... her all the story; and how, before he fell in love with her, he didn't believe in fairies, or Firedrakes, or caps of darkness, or anything nice and impossible, but only in horrid useless facts, and chemistry, and geology, and arithmetic, and mathematics, and even political economy. And the Firedrake would have made a mouthful of ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... strength, more practical knowledge of the world and more tact in overcoming difficulties; so that one meets wealthy miners who cannot write their own names, and learned bootblacks and cooks who have taken their degrees in mathematics and the languages. One millionaire who had a fancy to be thought literary sent regular contributions to the English magazines, every line of which was written by his footman, to whom he paid an enormous salary, not so much for writing as for keeping his secret, and it was years before it leaked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... his psychic characters he says that he has no specially prominent talent, but is much interested in languages, mathematics, physics and philosophy, in fact, in abstract subjects generally. "While I take a lively interest in every kind of intellectual work," he says, "it is only recently that I have been attracted to real life and its requirements. I have never had ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... that title would not have been inviting nor appropriate, and would have been exposed to comparison with Scarron, who being dead is inimitable. Wherefore—to put the question on the irrefragable basis of mathematics—wherefore as A B 'My Novel' is not equal to B C 'The Golden Novel,' nor to D E 'The Serious or Tragic Novel,' it follows that A B 'My Novel' is equal to P C 'Pisistratus Caxton,' and P C 'Pisistratus Caxton' must therefore be just equal, neither more nor ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... permitted to touch the special circuit that was the heart of the entire machine. Judge Carter also counter-requested—and enforced the request—that he be allowed to try the machinery out. He took a simple reading course in higher mathematics, after discovering that Holden's machine would not teach him how to play the violin. (Judge Carter already ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... supremely good and the source of all truth, the faculty of distinguishing truth from error which he gave us, cannot be fallacious so long as we use it aright, and distinctly perceive anything by it. Of this character are the demonstrations of mathematics, the knowledge that material things exist, and the clear reasonings that are formed regarding them. The results I have given in this treatise will perhaps be admitted to a place in the class of truths that are absolutely certain, if it be considered ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... "stolid," "cold," "callous," "brutal." Such a type of personality may be efficient and successful in pursuits requiring nothing besides a direct analysis of facts, uncolored by any irrelevant access of feeling, as in the case of mathematics and mechanics. But the geniuses even in strictly intellectual fields have frequently been men of sensitiveness, delicacy, and responsiveness to the feelings of others. That intellectual analysis, however, does frequently ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... "'Deficient in mathematics,' the professor said, gravely; and I suppose I am. I never could endure figures, and yet I must make my living ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... with it; and Gibbon wrote out his Memoir nine times. Hale studied for many years at the rate of sixteen hours a day, and when wearied with the study of the law, he would recreate himself with philosophy and the study of mathematics. Hume wrote thirteen hours a day while preparing his History of England. Montesquieu, speaking of one part of his writings, said to a friend, 'You will read it in a few hours; but I assure you that it has cost me so much labour that it ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... fide one, of London University,—he filled the position of Senior Classical Master; anonymously he figured as a teacher of drawing and lecturer on experimental chemistry. The other two masters, resident, were Mr. O'Gree and Herr Egger; the former, teacher of mathematics, assistant classical master, and professor of gymnastics; the latter, teacher of foreign languages, of music, and of dancing. Dr. Tootle took upon himself the English branches, and, of course, the arduous duty of general superintendence. He was a very tall, thin, cadaverous, ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... the most affablest creature, sir! so merry! So pleasant! she'll mount you up, like quicksilver, Over the helm; and circulate like oil, A very vegetal: discourse of state, Of mathematics, bawdry, ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... the complexity of the considerations with which it has to deal, depends upon methods of labour which are to a great extent traditional, and which can not, indeed, be well transmitted except in the personal way. In the distinctly limited sciences, such as mathematics, physics, or even those which deal with organic bodies, the methods of work can be so far set forth in printed directions that the student may to a great extent acquire sound ways of work without the ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... "The citizens will learn then why I have not enlisted, and I shall, moreover, be able to earn money for the country. I shall certainly get pupils, for my teachers are pleased with me, and I am already in the first class. I can give lessons in Latin, Greek, mathematics, and history; I have good testimonials, and, for the sake of the noble object I have in view, parents will assuredly intrust their children to me, and pay me ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... the notion of that genus is applicable: thus a live coal or a flame is said to be a species of fire, because in each of them the nature of fire is applied to a foreign matter. In like manner we speak of astronomy and perspective as being species of mathematics, inasmuch as the principles of mathematics are ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... while the Grands were receiving their lesson in mathematics, Louis slipped into the recitation-room, and while Valence was making a demonstration on the blackboard, he approached him unperceived, climbed on a stool to reach his face, and returned the slap he had ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... inherent difficulty in the problem. The attempt to "square the circle" gives only an approximate result, because of the impossibility of expressing the circumference in terms of the radius. But the limits of error on either side are known, and the approximation has practical value. Outside of mathematics, the correct use of approximation (and the kindred words approximate and approximately) is to express as near an approach to accuracy and certainty as the conditions of human thought or action in any given case make possible. Resemblance and similarity ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years; and my father now and then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father; where, by the assistance of him and my uncle John, and some other relations, I got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... Burns's school-days is completed by the mention of a sojourn, probably in the summer of 1775, in his mother's parish of Kirkoswald. Hither he went to study mathematics and surveying under a teacher of local note, and, in spite of the convivial attractions of a smuggling village, seems to have made progress in his geometry till his head was turned by a girl who lived next ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... all that rot? Yarns aren't done by mathematics. You can't do it by rule any more than you can dance by rule. You have to have the itch of the thing in your fingers, and if you haven't,—well, you're damned lucky, and you'll live long and prosper, that's all."—And with ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... Watt, was born in 1642, and found his way to Crawford's Dyke, then adjoining, and now part of, Greenock, where he founded a school of mathematics, and taught this branch, and also that of navigation, to the fishermen and seamen of the locality. That he succeeded in this field in so little and poor a community is no small tribute to his powers. He was a man of decided ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... constant anxiety for moral beauty." Even here we go around in a circle—a thing apparently inevitable, if one tries to reduce art to philosophy. But personally, we prefer to go around in a circle than around in a parallelepipedon, for it seems cleaner and perhaps freer from mathematics—or for the same reason we prefer Whittier to Baudelaire—a poet to a genius, or a healthy to a rotten apple—probably not so much because it is more nutritious, but because we like its taste better; we like the beautiful ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... pupils became her lasting friends. She became one of the best Greek scholars in the country, and continued, in her latest years, the habit of reading Homer, the tragedians, and Plato. But her studies took a wide range in mathematics, in natural philosophy, in psychology, in theology, as well as in ancient and modern literature. She had always a keen ear open to whatever new facts astronomy, chemistry, of the theories of light and heat had to furnish. Any knowledge, all knowledge was welcome. Her stores ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... short, was so well schooled in the theory of his calling, that it was almost as impossible for him to make any gross blunder on such an occasion, as it was for a well grounded scholar, who had commenced correctly, to fail in solving his problem in mathematics. Relinquishing the momentary intention to land, the chief slowly pursued his course round the palisades. As he approached the moccasin, having now nearly completed the circuit of the building, he threw the ominous article into the canoe, by a dexterous and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... application and peculiar emphasis required by a totally different civilization. But that theosophical principles were earlier known and more widely accepted in the Orient is quite true. That fact can in no possible way lessen their value to us. Precisely the same thing is true of the principles of mathematics. The science of mathematics reached European civilization directly from the Arabs, but we do not foolishly decline to make use of the knowledge on ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... may be, one notes a tendency in much purely idealistic and philosophical love poetry to present us with a mere skeleton of abstraction. Part of this effect may be the reader's fault, of course. Plato assures us that the harmonies of mathematics are more ravishing than the harmonies of music to the pure spirit, but many of us must take his word for it; in the same way it may be that when we fail to appreciate certain celebrations of ideal love it ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... for there was a conspicuous cavity in Polly's brain where the faculty for mathematics ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... differences between the intellectual situation now and in antiquity. The facts known to the Greeks about the nature of the physical universe were few. Much that was taught was not proved. Compare what they knew and what we know about astronomy and geography—to take the two branches in which (besides mathematics) they made most progress. When there were so few demonstrated facts to work upon, there was the widest room for speculation. Now to suppress a number of rival theories in favour of one is a very different thing from suppressing whole ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... stars. Their hosting was like the flocking of wild geese, and they followed St. Francis of Assisi as a leader, the captain of the morning stars. In the silence I heard the operation of the divine mathematics. ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... and when his brother succeeded to the title and estates in Ireland Mark, who had inherited a fortune from his mother, went to live with his powerful English relatives. For a while he thought of going into the army, but he knew he was a dunce in mathematics, so he soon gave up the idea. He tried Oxford, but failed there for the same reason. Then he just drifted. Now, still on the sunny side of thirty-five, he was knocking about, sick of things, just existing, and fearfully bored. He had dropped into Sihasset through sheer curiosity—just ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... go, and she did not wish to graduate simply for the honor of a diploma. Indeed, there were many studies between her and the diploma which she loathed. She could never understand how a girl of healthy mind could care for mathematics, exact science, or dead languages. English and French were enough for her tongue, and history, literature, and metaphysics enough ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... death for you I'll go, my Gouverneur Faulkner," I answered him, looking straight into his tired eyes that were so deep under the black, silver-tipped wings of his brows. I did not mean that death I had threatened myself from the mathematics in the paper, but in my heart there was something that rose and answered the sadness in his eyes with again all ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of History, says a hundred thousand men worked on this pyramid at one time and that it took twenty years to build it. It was scientifically and mathematically constructed ages before modern science or mathematics were born. The one who planned it knew that the earth is a sphere and that its motion is rotary. It is said that in all the thousands of years since it was built not a single fact in astronomy or mathematics has been discovered to contradict the ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which is merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where anything is professed and practised but ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... within him beyond her own ken or purpose in speaking them. He began to understand that to bury himself in an Italian university and dive into Aristotle's sayings, to heap up his own memory with the stores of thought he loved, or to plunge into the mazes of mathematics, philosophy, and music, while his brethren in his own country were tearing one another to pieces for lack of any good influence to teach or show them better things, would be a storing of treasure for himself on earth, a pursuit of the light of knowledge indeed, but ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the personal history of Fremont which gave his nomination a high popular relish. Of French descent, born in Savannah, Georgia, orphaned at an early age, he acquired a scientific education largely by his own unaided efforts in private study; a sea voyage as teacher of mathematics, and employment in a railroad survey through the wilderness of the Tennessee Mountains, developed the taste and the qualifications that made him useful as an assistant in Nicollet's scientific exploration of the great plateau where the Mississippi River finds ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... have conferred upon him, uses the entire power, influence, and income of his office in promoting the higher welfare of the city. He is the great patron of the Mechanics' Institute, which gave instruction last winter to two hundred and fifty evening pupils in drawing, mathematics, and engineering, at three dollars each for four months, besides affording them access to a library and pleasant rooms. Charles Wilstach, in short, is what Mr. Joseph Hoxie would call "a Peter Cooper sort of man." Imagine New York electing Peter Cooper mayor! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... tries to form them out of the pieces given him. In some cases much time and thinking are required to form the figure. The ring-puzzle is made of rings of bamboo or iron, on a bar. Boys having a talent for mathematics, or those who have a natural capacity to distinguish size and form, succeed very well at ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... him. Speaking to us once in private upon the necessity of persevering effort in order to any kind of success in life, he said, "When I was a student, I resolved to make myself master of Newton's 'Principia,' and although I had not at that time knowledge enough of mathematics to make the task other than a Hercules-labor to me, yet I read and wrought unceasingly, through all obstructions and difficulties, until I had accomplished it; and no Tamerlane conqueror ever felt half so happy as I did when the terrible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... assented. "That's better to my purpose, more like a multiplication table, instead of addition. But it must be about as dry as mathematics." ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... going in—that's right enough," replied a ruddy-haired girl in spectacles, "but there are only two scholarships, so nineteen of us are bound to fail—that's logic and mathematics and ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... increase in the number of persons or things in an undeviating ratio, with the aid of mathematics we can pass back to the first of the series, to the first man living at the base of the human series. Ever remember that there can not be a series without a unit lying at ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... brother, the Rev. Patrick Henry, rector of St. Paul's parish, in Hanover, and apparently a good Scotch classicist. In this way our Patrick acquired some knowledge of Latin and Greek, and rather more knowledge of mathematics,—the latter being the only branch of book-learning for which, in those days, he showed the least liking. However, under such circumstances, with little real discipline, doubtless, and amid plentiful interruptions, the process of ostensible education went forward ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... Edwin, who had lately taken to a habit of getting up very early,—to study mathematics. He looked surprised at seeing ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Franklin's own education accounts for many of his opinions on the general subject. Thus, he believed, contrary to the judgment of his time, that Latin and Greek were not essential subjects in a liberal education, and that mathematics, in which he never excelled, did not deserve the place it held. He believed that any one who had acquired a command of good English could learn any other modern language that he really needed when he needed it; and this faith he illustrated in his own person, for he learned ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... with an illustration of the doctrine of free will; and an enquiry, what view Mr. Pope might have in touching upon the Leibnitzian philosophy, and fatalism: by Mr. Crousaz, professor of philosophy and mathematics at Lausanne. This translation has been generally thought a production of Johnson's pen; but it is now known, that Mrs. Elizabeth Carter has acknowledged it to be one of her early performances. It is certain, however, that Johnson was eager to promote ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... ever experienced such joy in any part of the world before, and no man ever took as much. The especial property of true love is a certain harmony, which brings it about that the more one gives, the more the other receives, and vice-versa, as in certain cases in mathematics, where things are multiplied by themselves without end. This problem can only be explained to unscientific people, by asking them to look into their Venetian glasses, in which are to be seen thousands of faces produced by one alone. Thus, in the heart of two lovers, the roses of pleasure ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... successor of the great Galileo in the chair of philosophy and mathematics at Florence, is inseparably associated with the discovery that water in a suction-pump will only rise to the height of about thirty-two feet. This paved the way to his invention of the barometer ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Manual of Physics For the Study Room and Laboratory. By L.C. COOLEY, Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics in Vassar College. Cloth, 12mo, 448 pages. Illustrated $1.00 A new text-book in Physics for high schools, academies, and colleges. It embodies a full and thorough treatment of the laws of physics, the best methods in science teaching, the latest discoveries and applications in physics, ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... failed. Towards the end of the war at least ninety per cent, of the German artillery was marked down accurately by these means; and the staff employed on sound-ranging and flash-spotting (the last a kindred method depending on a mixture of observation and mathematics) had grown from four in 1914 to four thousand ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... him to the Pope, "I caused him to be nurtured and instructed for the love of God, especially since for aptitude and innocence I have never found so towardly a youth. Five or six years ago I caused him to be taught in languages, mathematics, and optics, and I have gratuitously instructed him with my own lips since the time that I received your mandate. There is no one at Paris who knows so much of the root of philosophy, though he has not produced the branches, flowers, and fruit ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... born in Hanover County, Virginia, He received instruction in Latin and mathematics from his father, but seemed to develop a greater fondness for hunting, fishing, and playing the fiddle than for study. Twice he was set up in business, and twice failed before he was twenty-four. He was then admitted to the bar after six weeks' ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... for the Indians are not expert in taking this article of food, which so much abounds in the forests, both on account of the difficulty they find in felling the trees, and on account of the "angle-ing" part of the process, which much exceeds their skill in mathematics. On the other hand, the last is just the sort of skill a common white American would be likely to manifest, his readiness and ingenuity in all such processes almost ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the close, when he declared, "I'll take my oath no prisoner has escaped from this prison." But there were those names of the missing, and there was our ill-disguised mirth. Smith resorted to heroic measures. He came in with two or three of his staff and a man who was said to be a professor of mathematics. This was on the 8th of November, 1864. He made all officers of the lower room move for a half-hour into the upper room, and there fall in line with the rest. His adjutant called the roll in reality. Each as his name was read aloud was made to step ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... good to me. The one-year periods away from home passed quickly and the five-year layoffs on Earth permitted me to devote myself to my hobbies, music and mathematics, without taking any time away from my family. Eventually, of course, my condition became an extremely common one. Who is there today among my readers who has all the parts with which he was ...
— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner
... history of mathematics are the calculations published by the weather-prophet of the Express. Arithmetic turns pale when she glances at them, and, striking her multiplication table with her algebraic knuckles, demands to know why the Express does not add a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... this chuckle, so familiar, startled him, for it was his pet name for an uncle, a professor of mathematics who used to call himself "Old Logarithms" when in play with his nephews; but, before Serviss had time to put out his hand, the horn came down softly on his head, then withdrew, and a boyish voice laughed in his ear, "You're ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... millions. The increase of the blacks above the increase of the whites in the period of twenty years, is fourteen per cent. In his work on the African in the United States, Professor Gilliam, having in hand the figures of our Census Bureau, forecasts with the demonstration of mathematics our population one century hence. We do not know what may modify his figures, but he computes that at the present rate of increase there are to be in the old slave States in one hundred years, ninety-five millions of whites and double ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... her heart beat violently. The tone of his voice betrayed that the master of Wavertree had no more sympathy for art, or anything connected with it, than had Miss Davis. He was an accurate methodical man with a taste for mathematics, who believed in the power conferred by knowledge on man and woman; but who had little respect for those who concerned themselves with only the beauties and graces of life. Art was to him a trifle, and devotion to it a folly. Therefore Hetty with her trembling ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... said, "wasted exactly forty-nine minutes in kicking against the pricks. Short of a European war, you can't alter the geography of France, and the laws of Mathematics take a lot of upsetting. It's no good wishing that Bordeaux was Biarritz, or that Pau was half the distance it is from Angouleme. If you don't want to go right through, you must stay at Bordeaux. It's the only possible place. If you don't want to stay at Bordeaux, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... England, was admired by Dahlia and Zephine. She had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident. The result had been Favourite. She met her father from ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and worldly knowledge—purified, as far as in him lay, from the dross of speculation and human opinion—which lay stored in the archives of his mind? Yes; but that was all. History, and its interpretation of human progress; the languages; mathematics, and the elements of the physical sciences; literature; and a knowledge of people and places. With these his retentive mind was replete. But beyond this he must learn of her. And her tutor, he now ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Point at an academy at Ripley, Ohio, conducted by William Taylor, and passed his entrance examinations with fair grades. His best study was mathematics. He entered at the ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden |
