539 



myself to the utmost in the cause of reform, and that I will never 

 decline any office which may increase my power to effect it. I am 

 nearly certain of being nominated to the office of Moderator in the 

 year 1818-19*, and as I am an examiner in virtue of my office, for 

 the next year I shall pursue a course even more decided than hitherto, 

 since I shall feel that men have been prepared for the change, and 

 will then be enabled to have acquired a better system by the publi- 

 cation of improved elementary books. I have considerable influence 

 as a lecturer, and I will not neglect it. It is by silent perseverance 

 only that we can hope to reduce the many-headed monster of preju- 

 dice, and make the University answer her character as the loving 

 mother of good learning and science." 



Nor was it only towards placing 011 a better footing the purely 

 mathematical studies of the University that his aspirations were di- 

 rected. In the best spirit of a faithful and devoted son of Alma 

 Mater, he repudiated the idea of her approaching decrepitude, and 

 contended for her progress in all the great lines of scientific distinc- 

 tion. He was one of the most zealous promoters of the establish- 

 ment of an Astronomical Observatory at Cambridge, and succeeded, 

 in spite of considerable opposition, in procuring the appointment of 

 two successive Syndicates for the consideration of the subject, and 

 finally in carrying it triumphantly through the Senate. The result, 

 it need hardly be remarked, has brilliantly justified the effort. He 

 was also one of the first members of the Cambridge University Phi- 

 losophical Society founded in 1819, a body, which has established a 

 well-earned scientific reputation, and of which he held the office of 

 Vice-President in 1831 and 1840, and of President in 1841-42. He 

 was also one of the earliest members of the Astronomical Society, 

 which he joined immediately on its foundation in 1820. In 1818 he 

 became a Fellow of the Royal, and subsequently of the Geological 

 Society. 



In 1825-26 he contributed to the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana an 

 article on Arithmetic, which has been designated by one eminently 

 qualified to form an opinion on every point of mathematical history, 

 as "the most learned work on the history of that subject which 

 exists," and which, entering as it does into the details of the arith- 

 metical nomenclature, notation, and methods of every age and lan- 

 * This was the case. He was also Senior Moderator in 1821. 



