BENJAMIN PEIRCE. 



BY EX-PRESIDENT THOMAS HILL, D.D., LL.D. 



[From The Harvard Register, May, 1880.] 



No name has shed a more brilliant lustre over the academic department 

 of Harvard College, during the last thirty-five years, than that of Benjamin 

 Peirce, of the class of 1829. He was born at Salem, April 4, 1809; was 

 appointed tutor in 1831, University professor of mathematics and natural 

 philosophy in 1833, Perkins professor of astronomy and mathematics in 1842. 

 Tutor Henry Flynt (1693) ^ s ^e only person ever connected with the College 

 for a longer period. From 1836 to 1846 he issued a series of text-books on 

 geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and "curves, functions, and forces." They 

 were so full of novelties that they never became widely popular, except, per- 

 haps, the trigonometry ; but they have had a permanent influence upon math- 

 ematical teaching in this country ; most of their novelties have now become 

 common-places in all text-books. The introduction of infinitesimals or of 

 limits into elementary books ; the recognition of direction as a fundamental 

 idea ; the use of Hassler's definition of a sine as an arithmetical quotient, 

 free from entangling alliance with the size of the triangle ; the similar deliv- 

 erance of the expression of derivative functions and differential co-efficients 

 from the superfluous introduction of infinitesimals ; the fearless and avowed 

 introduction of new axioms, when confinement to Euclid's made a demon- 

 stration long and tedious, in one or two of these points European writers 

 moved simultaneously with Peirce, but in all he was an independent inventor, 

 and nearly all are now generally adopted. 



All his writings are characterized by singular directness and conciseness, 

 and particularly by a happy choice of notation, a point of great impor- 

 tance to the mathematician, lessening not only his mechanical labor in writing, 

 but also his intellectual labor in grasping and handling the difficult concep- 

 tions of his science. 



His text-books were, also complained of for their condensation, as being 

 therefore obscure ; but under competent teachers their brevity was the cause 

 of their superior lucidity. In the Waltham High School his books were 



