Education. James J. Walsh
Macaulay says: “The inductive method has been practised ever since the beginning of the world by every human being. It is constantly practised by the most ignorant clown, by the most thoughtless schoolboy, by the very child at the breast. That method leads the clown to the conclusion that if he sows barley he shall not reap wheat. By that method the schoolboy learns that a cloudy day is the best for catching trout. The very infant, we imagine, is led by induction to expect milk from his mother or nurse, and none from his father. Not only is it not true that Bacon invented the inductive method; but it is not true that he was the first person who correctly analyzed that method and explained its uses. Aristotle had long before pointed out the absurdity of supposing that syllogistic reasoning could ever conduct men to the discovery of any new principle, had shown that such discoveries must be made by induction, and by induction alone, and had given the history of the inductive process, concisely indeed, but with great perspicuity and precision.”
And Huxley quite as emphatically points out: “The method of scientific investigation is nothing but the expression of the necessary mode of working of the human mind. It is simply the mode by which all phenomena are reasoned about—rendered precise and exact.”
While the whole trend of education, even that of literature, was scientific at Alexandria, the principal feature of the teaching was, as we have said, concerned with the physical sciences and mathematics. It is in mathematics that the greatest triumphs were secured. Euclid’s “Geometry,” as we use it at the present time in our colleges and universities, was put into form by Euclid teaching at the University of Alexandria in the early days of the institution. Euclid’s setting forth of geometry was so perfect that it has remained for over 2,000 years the model on which all text-books of geometry of all the later times have been written. There seems no doubt that writers on the history of mathematics are quite justified in proclaiming Euclid’s “Geometry” as one of the greatest intellectual works that ever came from the hand of man. The first Ptolemy was fortunate in having secured this man as the founder of the mathematical department of his university. His example, the wonderful incentive of his work, the absolute perfection of his conclusions, must have proved marvellous emulative factors for the students who flocked to Alexandria.
Commonly mathematicians are said to be impractical geniuses so occupied with mathematical ideas that their influence in other ways counts for little in university life. If we are to believe the stories that come to us with regard to Euclid, however, and there is every reason to believe them, for some of them come from men who are almost contemporaries, or from men who had their information from contemporaries, Euclid’s influence in the university must have been for all that is best in education. Proclus tells the story of King Ptolemy once having asked Euclid, if there was any shorter way to obtain a knowledge of geometry than through the rather difficult avenue of Euclid’s own text-book, and the great mathematician replied that there was “no royal road to geometry.” Stobaeus relates the story of a student who, having learned the first theorem, asked “but what shall I make by learning these things?” The question is so modern that Euclid’s answer deserves to be in the memory of all those who are interested in education. Euclid called his slave and said, “Give him twopence, since he must make something out of everything that he does, even the improvement of his mind.”
Probably even more significant than the tradition that Euclid did his work at this first modern university, and that besides being a mathematician he was a man of very practical ideas in education, is the fact that he was appreciated by the men of his time and that his work was looked up to with highest reverence by his contemporaries and immediate successors as representing great achievement. It is not ever thus. Far from resenting in any way the magnificent synthesis that he had made of many rather vague notions in mathematics before his time, his contemporaries united in doing him honor. They realized that his teaching created a proper scientific habit of mind. Pappus says of Apollonius that he spent a long time as a pupil of Euclid at Alexandria and it was thus that he acquired a thorough scientific habit of mind. After Euclid’s time the value of his discoveries as a means of training the mind was thoroughly appreciated. The Greek philosophers are said to have posted on the doors of their schools “Let no one enter here who does not know his Euclid.” In the midst of the crumbling of old-fashioned methods of education in the introduction of the elective system, in the modern time, many of our best educators have insisted that at least this portion of mathematics, Euclid’s contribution to the science, should be a required study, and most educators feel, even when there is question of law or medical study, that one of the best preparations is to be found in a thorough knowledge of Euclid.
Almost as wonderful as the work of Euclid was that of the second great mathematician of the Alexandrian school, Archimedes, who not only developed pure mathematics but applied mathematical principles to mechanics and proved besides to have wonderful mechanical ability and inventive genius. It was Archimedes of whom Cicero spoke so feelingly in his “Tusculan Disputations,” when about a century and a quarter after Archimedes’ death, he succeeded in finding, his tomb in the old cemetery at Syracuse during his quaestorship there. How curious it is to think that after so short a time as 127 years from the date of his death Archimedes was absolutely forgotten by his fellow-Syracusans, who resolutely denied that any trace of Archimedes’ tomb existed. This stranger from Rome knew much more of Archimedes than his fellow-citizens a scant four generations after his time. Not how men advance, but how they forget even great advance that has been made, lose sight of it entirely at times and only too often have to rediscover it, is the most interesting phase of history. Cicero says, “Thus one of the noblest cities of Greece and one which at one time had been very celebrated for learning, knew nothing of the monument of its greatest genius until it was rediscovered for them by a native of Arpinum”—Cicero’s modest designation for himself.
We have known much more about Archimedes’ inventions than about his mathematical works. The Archimedian screw, a spiral tube for pumping water, invented by him, is still used in Egypt. The old story with regard to his having succeeded in making burning mirrors by which he was enabled to set the Roman vessels on fire during the siege of Syracuse, used to be doubted very seriously and, indeed, by many considered a quite incredible feat, clearly an historical exaggeration, until Cuvier and others in the early part of the nineteenth century succeeded in making a mirror by which in an experiment in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris wood was set on fire at a distance of 140 feet. As the Roman vessels were very small, propelled only by oars or at least with very small sail capacity, and as their means of offence was most crude and they had to approach surely within 100 feet of the wall to be effective, the old story therefore is probably entirely true. The other phase of history according to which Archimedes succeeded in constructing instruments by which the Roman vessels were lifted bodily out of the water, is probably also true, and certainly comes with great credibility of the man of whom it is told that, after having studied the lever, he declared that if he only had some place to rest his lever, he could move the world.
The well-known story of his discovery in hydrostatics, by which he was enabled to tell the King whether the royal goldsmiths had made his crown of solid gold or not, is very well authenticated. Archimedes realized the application of the principle of specific gravity in the solution of such problems while he was taking a bath. Quite forgetful of his state of nudity he ran through the streets, crying “Eureka! Eureka! I have found it! I have found it!” There are many other significant developments of hydrostatics and mechanics, besides specific gravity and the lever, the germs of which are at least attributed to Archimedes. He seems to have been one of the world’s great eminent practical geniuses. That he should have been a product of Alexandria and should even have been a professor there would be a great surprise if we did not know Alexandria as a great scientific university. As it is, it is quite easy to understand how naturally he finds his place in the history of that university and how proud any modern university would be to have on the rolls of its students and professors a man who not only developed pure science but who made a series of practical applications that are of great value to mankind. Such men our modern universities appropriately claim the right to vaunt proudly as the products of their training.
When we analyze something of the work in pure mathematics that was accomplished by Archimedes our estimation of him is greatly enhanced. His work “On the Quadrature,” that is the finding of the area of a segment of the parabola, is probably his