Your few words in Queens' Hall seemed
to expect a little reply.
Now as to the Modern Geometry. With your praises of this science--as
to the room for extension in induction and deduction, &c.; and with
your facts--as to the amount of space which it occupies in
Mathematical Journals; I entirely agree. And if men, after leaving
Cambridge, were designed to shut themselves up in a cavern, they could
have nothing better for their subjective amusement. They might have
other things as good; enormous complication and probably beautiful
investigation might be found in varying the game of billiards with
novel islands on a newly shaped billiard table. But the persons who
devote themselves to these subjects do thereby separate themselves
from the world. They make no step towards natural science or
utilitarian science, the two subjects which the world specially
desires. The world could go on as well without these separatists.
Now if these persons lived only for themselves, no other person would
have any title to question or remark on their devotion to this barren
subject. But a Cambridge Examiner is not in that position. The
University is a national body, for education of young men: and the
power of a Cambridge Examiner is omnipotent in directing the education
of the young men; and his responsibility to the cause of education is
very distinct and very strong.
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