rent subjects have different worths for the
students, but there are certain recognized values attached to each
coin of the intellectual realm.
Mathematics and pure physics eminently represent the larger part
of these six elements which I have named. Mathematics demands
concentration. Mathematics is, in a sense, the mind giving itself
to certain abstract truths. What is X^2 but a form of the mind?
Mathematics demands clearness of thinking and of statement.
Without clearness mathematics is naught. It also represents
comprehensiveness. The large field of its truth is pressed into
its greater relationships. Mathematical truth is complex. Part
is involved with part. It is consecutive. Part follows part in
necessary order. It is also continuous. It represents a graded
progress.
It is, however, to be remembered that the reasoning of mathematics is
unlike most reasoning which we usually employ. Mathematical reasoning
is necessary. Most reasoning is not necessary. That two _plus_ two
equal four is a truth about which people do not differ usually. But
reasoning in economics, such as the protective tariff; reasoning in
philosophy, such as the presence or absence of innate ideas; reasoning
in history; is not absolute. I have even wondered how far Cambridge,
standing for mathematics and the physical sciences, has helped to make
men great. Oxford is said to be the mother of great movements, and it
is. Here the Wesleyan movement, and the Tractarian movement and the
Social movement, as seen in Toynbee Hall, had their origins. Cambridge
is called the mother of great men. Is there any relation of cause and
effect, at Cambridge, between its emphasis upon mathematics and the
sciences and the great men whom she has helped to make?
Logic is the subject of a course which embodies the six marks I have
laid down. It demands these great elements in almost the same ways in
which mathematics demands them. Logic, in a sense, might be called
applied or incarnate mathematics. The man who wishes to be a thinker
should be and is the master of logic.
Language, too, represents almost one half of the course of the modern
college, and it represented more than one half of the course of the
older college. What merits has the study of language for making the
thinker? The study of languages makes no special demand on the
quality of concentration, but the study does demand and creates
comprehensiveness and clearness. The study represents a complex
pro
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