Newton's Binomial Theorem 



Let us try to describe it. And who knows? 

 Perhaps, in doing so, I shall revive the courage 

 of some other poor derelict hungering after 

 knowledge. 



I was denied the privilege of learning with 

 a master. I should be wrong to complain. 

 Solitary study has its advantages : it does not 

 cast you in the official mould; it leaves you all 

 your originality. Wild fruit, when it ripens, 

 has a different taste from hot-house produce: 

 it leaves on a discriminating palate a bitter- 

 sweet flavour whose virtue is all the greater 

 for the contrast. Yes, if it were in my power, 

 I would start afresh, face to face with my only 

 counsellor, the book itself, not always a very 

 lucid one; I would gladly resume my lonely 

 watches, my struggles with the darkness 

 whence, at last, a glimmer appears as I con- 

 tinue to explore it; I should retraverse the 

 irksome stages of yore, stimulated by the one 

 desire that has never failed me, the desire 

 of learning and of afterwards bestowing my 

 mite of knowledge on others. 



When I left the normal school, my stock of 

 mathematics was of the scantiest. How to ex- 

 tract a square root, how to calculate and prove 

 the surface of a sphere: these represented to 



me the culminating points of the subject. 



277 



