Classics in Mathematics Education: Mathematics and Liberal Education

The subject of my address today is the consideration of the part which the elements of mathematics should play in a liberal education for the generality of boys up to the age of nineteen. The boys I mean are, of course, those who are capable of a liberal education. Wealth can do much, but it cannot give brain, and it cannot give character; nor can it give the intellectual interests which come from the union of brain with character. Accordingly, I exclude the residuum of boys and am thinking of those only with fair brain and decent interests. Happily for England, these constitute the great majority of the ordinary students who pass on to our universities.