The consideration of the education of the reasoning habits suggests
ideas far from favourable to the existing course. I am old enough to
remember the time of mere geometrical processes, and I do not hesitate
to say that for the cultivation of accurate mental discipline they
were far superior to the operations in vogue at the present day. There
is no subject in the world more favourable to logical habit than the
Differential Calculus in all its branches _if logically worked in its
elements_: and I think that its applications to various physical
subjects, compelling from time to time an attention to the elementary
grounds of the Calculus, would be far more advantageous to that
logical habit than the simple applications to Pure Equations and Pure
Algebraical Geometry now occupying so much attention.
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
G.B. AIRY.
_Professor Cayley_.
* * * * *
DEAR SIR,
I have been intending to answer your letter of the 8th November. So
far as it is (if at all) personal to myself, I would remark that the
statutory duty of the Sadlerian Professor is that he shall explain and
teach the principles of Pure Mathematics and apply himself to the
advancement of the Science.
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