XII
THE FEMININE APPRECIATION OF MATHEMATICS
XII
THE FEMININE APPRECIATION OF MATHEMATICS
If I could approach mathematics with the same spirit as do ninety-eight women out of a hundred, I might be rather good at them. As it is, my power of will in face of algebraical figures, in face even of numbers that exceed the functions of the simplest forms of arithmetic, my power of will stands aghast. I can do nothing.
Now, ninety-eight women out of a hundred are far more ignorant of the mere rudiments of mathematics than am I; yet with an instinct which I would give my soul to possess they can solve problems and carry on the ordinary business of life with an ability that is little short of marvellous.
Truly, a little learning is a dangerous thing, and most especially when that learning is of mathematics. If once you have tried to weigh hydrogen on an agate-balanced scale, you are for ever unfitted for the common-or-garden mathematical exigencies of life. Now this is where a woman has all the pull. The most that she has ever had to calculate the weight of is a pound of flour or seven and a half pounds of sirloin already weighed and attested by the butcher. When, then, it comes to weighing the baby on the scale-pans in the kitchen, she will fling on the weights with such a degree of confidence that the result is bound to be correct. You and I, on the other hand, would approach the matter with such delicacy of touch—believing, and quite rightly, that a baby was of far more importance than all the immeasurable quantities of hydrogen in the world—with such delicacy and care should we approach it that the poor infant would have caught its death of cold and be in a comatose condition of exhaustion before we had decided that the scale-pan was clean or the weights were in proper condition to be used.
This smattering of general education is a fatal business. It unfits men for all the real and useful demands of life.