February 12, 1903J 



NA TURE 



39 



required for practical engineers and electricians has been 

 exciting considerable attention in Germany, as shown by 

 a series of addresses by Prof. Klein, Dr. Erwin I'apperitz 

 (" Die Mathematik an der deutschen technischen 

 Hochschulen ") and others on this subject, thereby 

 attention has been directed to the stimulating method 

 of Perry, who has utilised the idea due originally to 

 Squeers and worked it to a practical result. 



The book, as a series of events connected by a slight 

 thread of continuous theory, suggests a mathematical 

 Pickwick ; the subject is inculcated by a succession of 

 practical problems, chiefly of electrical and engineer- 

 ing interest, always completed very usefully by an 

 arithmetical application to a real case. As in Pickwick, 

 these applications have a personal flavour, which must 

 not be lost by research delayed too late even where they 

 are malicious, as in the story of the theorist who proposed 

 an electrical condenser which would have cost a million, 

 or perhaps even a billion, pounds to build. 



The state of mathematics in England, as indeed of 

 most learning, is in a very depressed condition. The 

 school at Cambridge is going down hill ; the numbers 

 in the mathematical tripos are di minishing so rapidly 

 that it has sunk from its former proud position to third 

 on the list in size. The decay started when the examin- 

 ation was divided into two parts, and the first half was 

 advanced into the summer time, on the simple innocent 

 plea that it would force the men not to waste their time 

 with gaieties. These gaieties flourish more unrestrictedly 

 than ever, and so the examination is held earlier still so 

 as not to clash with boat races and other frivolous fix- 

 tures, and the three years' course, as it is called, is 

 reduced to about two years and a half, to suit the con- 

 venience of the college tutors, who are allowed to run 

 the University in their own interest. As showing the 

 danger of ill-considered reform, it is ruled now that a 

 return is impossible to the old system, which worked 

 quite well ; and to remedy matters a new scheme was 

 nearly adopted of reducing the time still further, osten- 

 sibly to two years, really to one-and-a-half. At this 

 rate, the Cambridge student of mathematics will soon 

 be as extinct as the Bachelor of Salamanca. 



As for the second part of the mathematical tripos 

 the standard has been raised not quite to infinity, as 

 there are still a few stray candidates, but they barely 

 outnumber the examiners. Contrast this with the good 

 old days when Lord Kelvin was an examiner and there 

 were fifty wranglers out of a total of one hundred candi- 

 dates ; the men had the advantage then of three years 

 and a half, an extra eight months of the most valuable 

 time, including a third long vacation and fourth October 

 term, to revise their work and digest it thoroughly, 

 not to mention the stimulus for the teaching staff of 

 dealing with a greater variety of subjects than in the 

 present elementary dull round. 



Perry's book is probably considered very unsuitable 

 for the Cambridge student, but it would serve as a 

 corrective to the tendency to run after such a singular 

 attraction as the Ostrogradsky Paradox, so recurrent as 

 showing the lack of physical touch in the recent school 

 of thought. The student of physical proclivities is driven 

 away now into the natural or mechanical science tripos. In 

 former days, there was a mathematical school of natural 

 NO. 1737, VOL. 67] 



philosophy which produced Adams, Stokes, Thomson, 

 Tait, Maxwell, Rayleigh and Hopkinson ; this school, 

 which the Germans envied, has been thrown into the 

 melting pot, and an attempt is made instead to rival the 

 Germans in their own particular line of pure abstract 

 analysis, starting twenty or thirty years behindhand,, 

 and no wonder the Germans despise such servile imi- 

 tation. 



The last century closed with events which have called 

 up heart-searching as to the cause of our state of de- 

 cadence and decrepitude. Prominent among the causes 

 was the low state revealed of our intellectual ideal in the 

 public service. But what else can be expected from a 

 system which allows our Civil Service Commission to 

 lower this ideal to mere mark-hunting hunger and to 

 play into the hands of the crammer, so that we go forth 

 with jaded, undisciplined brain and intellectual dyspepsia 

 to encounter a keen, intellectual foe ? Our Govern- 

 ment experts on education for the public service have 

 shown they are ignorant of the psychology of their pro- 

 fession in producing such universal distaste for all the 

 mental resources required to keep the mind in an active, 

 healthy state. We must have a substitute as near to the 

 high ideal of the American West Point Military Academy 

 standard as we can attain if we are to recover lost 

 ground. 



With our present system, there is no incentive to effort 

 once the obstacle of the Civil Service entrance examin- 

 ation is past by the aid of the crammer, and so the 

 intellectual pace is set by the slowest. Double as 

 many should be entered as are allowed to pass out, as 

 at West Point, and the weeding-out process should go on 

 continually, so as to excite competition to escape the last 

 place, as great as among the Chinaman's ducks. 



"What is to be said of an institution (Coopers Hill) 

 where 20 per cent, of the candidates fail?" Lord George 

 Hamilton asked, thinking perhaps of Sandhurst, where 

 all pass out without exception ; what would Lord George 

 have to say about West Point, we wonder, where 50 per 

 cent, do not graduate ? 



Hitherto, even in the Navy, there was room for 

 improvement in intellectual alertness ; the young aspirant 

 was required to show more scripture knowledge than a 

 bishop would exact from a candidate for ordination ; but 

 he knew no Greek, so his culture was of the middle class,. 

 Hebraistic rather than Hellenistic, as Matthew Arnold 

 has said. He lost the inspiration of the history and 

 strategy of the first great naval power in the Mediter- 

 ranean to show him the identity of the tactics of the 

 triremes and galleys and of the modern torpedo flotilla : 

 and it is perpetual stimulus of this kind that is required 

 to keep him fresh and active in mind, like a Nelson, ready 

 prepared by historical analogy for all possible events. 



We lost the American colonies from defects in our 

 naval strategy and the absence of loyal cooperation by 

 sea and land ; the same will happen again under our 

 present system, where the admiral, with the fear of 

 Byng's court-martial before him, plays his own game 

 regardless of his partner ; the force of Voltaire's proverb, 

 pour encourager les aiiires, is not lost on the foreign 

 strategist. 



Prof. Perry, in his writings and addresses, has done 

 much to introduce a higher ideal and to combat prejudiced 



