4
THE BATTALION
the regions of the past, in the place of the present, and into
the recesses of the future, and at every step directs our
thoughts to reason, to think, to weigh and compare, and into
every chamber we enter we feel its impulse by seeing the pos-
-sible and the impossible. The study of mathematics is based
•upon a logical basis which is the foundation stone to all other
studies. If we are at all able to comprehend the stud}^ of
English it is because our minds have been prepared for it by
mathematics. Tt has been very truly said, “Let a man hav
ing a bent for mathematics improve the opportunities which
might he given him, and his career will shine forth in the
constellation.” Thus we readily realize the fact that the
. study of mathematics is a more important factor in educa
tion than the study of English because the results obtained
from it are the means which education seeks for the accom
plishment of its desired end.
Thus far 1 have shown the extent of the importance of
.mathematical studies from thestandpoint of the school room-
But has mathematics done for us nothing more. If all
•the benefit we can derive from it be the development of our
mental faculties the compensation would have indeed been
sufficiently great. But let us examine to find what mathe
matics has done for civilization.
If we direct our thoughts for a few moments to the time
preceding the brilliant corruscations of the Sixteenth Century,
we will find that the world then appeared to the imaginative
but uninformed minds as a mighty maze and all without a
plan. Their conception of the globe, the solar system and
matter was not much more . lear than that of the ancients.
The human race, with the exception of a very few, still be-
‘ lieved the figure of the earth to be a vast plain, surrounded
by an ocean of unknown extent. The sun, moon and stars
were imagined to rise from and set beneath the waves of the
sea. Matter was believed to be subject to changes and de
struction at the will of some superior being. It was through
the agency of mathematics that Copernicus was enabled to
revolutionize the system of the celestial orbs, demonstrating
;to the world that the sun war, the center of attraction in the