Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/215

 Ilclmdon Mantle Tree Infcription, &c. the bad effe&s that had enfucd from it. He mpreffes on the mind of his nominal fcholar that " as without the art of numbering a man can do almoft nothing, fo with the help he may attain to all things." He expatiates " how much it will profit towards the ac- quifition of all the fciences," and urges " how necefTary it is in every profeffion and every employment." Heparticularifes "mufic, phyfic, lawe, Grammar, philofophy, divinitie, the armie," and fets forth " in how many ways it is conducible for all private weales, for lords and all poflevTioners, for merchants and all other occupiers, and gene- rally for all eftates of men." After mewing its importance in Gram* mar, and in philofophy, he thus quotes the authorities of Ariftotle and Plato : " It is the faying of Ariftotle, that hee that is ignorant of Arithmeticke, is meet for no fcience. And Plato, his mafter, wrote a little fentence over hisfchool-houje door, Let none, enter in hither (quoth he) that is ignorant of Geometry. Seeing hee would have all his fcholars expert in Geometry, much rather hee would have the fame in Arithmeticke, without which Geometry cannot {land [q]" When William of Wykeham formed his two noble feminaries on a truly original plan, which was, as it is obferved by his moft refpe&able biographer [r], to train the members of them from the lowcft clafs of Grammar learning to the highefl degree of the fe- veral faculties, it was not to be expected that he mould make Arithmetick a primary article. Arithmetick was then ranged in one of the higher claries of fcience, and with Latin numerals was hardly attainable by a {tripling at a Grammar fchool. The work- ing of a fum in the Rule of Three, if that were one of the calcu- lating fuppofitions then propofed, would have long puzzled the [j] Record's Arithmetick, p. 4, 5. The fcholar replys at p. 6, " This art is fo neceflary for man, that (as I thinke now) fo much as a man lacketh of it, fo much he lacketh of his fenfe and wit." [r] The Life of William of Wykeham, by Robert Lowth, D. D. p. 177. brighteft