Liberal Education. 255 



the fvict that physical investigators as a class have 

 no well-defined idea of the benefits to be derived 

 from classical studies, while classical scholars and 

 literary men are too generally ignorant of the 

 value of physical science as a means of training 

 the intellect. Our opinions reflect our experience 

 with tolerable accuracy, and we can hardly be ex- 

 pected to have a very lively sense of the worth of 

 pursuits in which we have never heartily engaged. 

 If we have always smoked meerschaum we are 

 apt to think poorly of briarwood. So when a lit- 

 erary man takes up a treatise on " Determinants " 

 with the casual remark that he hates the sight of 

 such a book, we may be pretty sure that, what- 

 e^er else his opinions may be good for, he is no 

 very competent judge of the educational value of 

 mathematics. It is quite obvious that he dislikes 

 the subject as some women dislike politics, be- 

 cause he has never mastered the rudiments of it. 

 To him a parabola is only a neat-looking curve, 

 as to the average classical scholar a Leyden jar is 

 only a glass bottle with a rod stuck through the 

 cork, and to many a student of physics the Iliad 

 is nothing but a tiresome account of the squabbles 

 of a parcel of barbarians, " proving nothing," as 

 worthy Mr. Vince would have said. 



So deep-seated at present is the incapacity of 



