OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 35 



modern tongues are based upon the classics. It would be a 

 pity then that they should ever drop out of the curriculum of 

 of our colleges and schools. Yet there is great force in the 

 objections urged against the prominent part that they have been 

 make to take in the education of boys. Many boys have been 

 known to be able to read Horace and Homer and Cicero and Thu- 

 cydides, and write Latin verse and Greek Iambics vrho could 

 not draw a promissory note or even add up a column of figures. 

 In this of course, there is a serious defect and it does force upon 

 us the thought that for the actual battles of life the classics are 

 not a necessity. The same, however, it is generally thought, can 

 not be said of the study of Matliematics, for they enter largely 

 into almost all the practical departments of life. To paper a 

 room, to la}^ down a carpet, to manage finances, to build houses, 

 to construct bridges, to surve}^ lands, to sail ships on the ocean, 

 in fact to carry on the commerce of the world all require a know- 

 ledge of Mathematics. So that in point of practical work there 

 is much to be said in favor of Mathematics as compared with 

 Classics, and yet the latter have had, or at least can be made to 

 have, as great an influence for good upon the individual as the 

 former. Because, in point of fact, the amount of Mathematics 

 needed in practicalTife is, after all, comparatively insignificant. 

 A man of very limited education will calculate in a short time 

 the quantity of material needed to paper a room, or carpet a 

 floor ; a builder acquires in a short time all the Mathematics 

 needed for his work, and so does the navigator and surveyor. 

 So that in reality the schoolboy, on entering practical life says 

 good bye and good bye for ever to a vast amount of Mathemat- 

 ics that he waded through in school, — his Quadratic Equations, 

 Arithmetical Problems, Propositions of Euclid, Solutions of 

 Triangles, — what have they been to him, after all, but a sort of 

 irksome and burdensome training of the mind ? 



The real state of the case seems to be that too much time 

 is given to both Classics and Mathematics, while a whole host 

 of other subjects which would be of practical use in almost every 

 department of life are ignored. 



The principle laid down in educating a child should be how 

 ±0 mal<e him a useful member of society. What can he be 



