Recent Discussions Concerning Liberal Education [pp. 585-616]

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processes and results of reasoning as a prolific factor in the discovery of truth in physical science, the realms of actual being
in Astronomy, Mechanics, Chemistry, and especially in Applied
Science and the Arts. The conditions being once ascertained
by observation and experiment which involve mathematical
proportions, as the ratio of the r~sultant of two forces to their
sum, of the force of gravity to the distance and mass of bodies,
of the angles of incidence and reflection in the reflection of
light, innumerable other conclusions can be certainly deduced
by in~efragable mathematical reasoning.
But while mathematics exerts this high educating power
upon the reasoning faculties, it needs to be supplemented by
training in the ancient languages, in order to any adequate and
balanced discipline of these faculties. The views which we
have expressed in a former article on this point, are more than
vindicated in the following quotation from Dr. Jones, which we
make, barely remarking that we do not regard these studies as
rivals or superiors, the one of the other, but as mutually supporting and complementary. Indeed, we should as soon think
of asking whether animal or vegetable food were best for man,
or whether he had better live on one to the exclusion of the
other, as whether the reasoning powers were most strengthened
by mathematical or classical studies, or by either exclusively of
the other. Says Dr. Jones:
"Nor must we suppose that the mental discipline which
mathematics effect can be accomplished through its instrumentality alone. Indeed, many have doubted whether mathematics is the best subject for training and developing the
reason, and whether it is not inferior to the classics in this
respect. For it has been urged against it, and with a great
amount of force, that it is concerned only with number,
quantity, and form, or the intuitions of time and space, and is
thus limited to one sphere of existence, and therefore in no
way applicable to the diversified phenomena of our intellectual
life; and that, inasmuch as it is concerned with necessar~
matter, it incapacitates rather than trains the mind for dealing
correctly with contingent matter, and so for forming accurate
and sound conclusions in questions of common life, and of
moral, political, philosophical, or religious truth, when abso