126 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



recall a mathematical story: "About 1570 Sir Henry Savile, warden 

 of Merton College, endeavoured to create an interest in mathematical 

 studies by giving a course of lectures on Greek geometry ... On 

 concluding the course he used the following language : ' By the grace 

 of God, gentlemen hearers, I have performed my promise; I have 

 redeemed my pledge. I have explained, according to my ability, the 

 definitions, postulates, axioms, and the first eight propositions of the 

 elements of Euclid. Here, sinking under the weight of years, I lay 

 down my art and my instruments'" (Cajori, p. 281). If in 1570 

 the work named was the possible performance of university students, 

 while to-day schoolboys accomplish the six books of Euclid, or their 

 equivalent, surely a time may come when schoolboys will find no diffi- 

 culty with the abstractions of Hilbert's geometry, and the truth of 

 Professor Halsted's claim may be felt, that " Geometry at last made 

 rigorous is also thereby made more simple." 



