Page:First six books of the elements of Euclid 1847 Byrne.djvu/16

xii for the letters must be traced one by one before the students arrange in their minds the particular magnitude referred to, which often occasions confusion and error, as well as loss of time. Also if the parts which are given as equal, have the same colours in any diagram, the mind will not wander from the object before it; that is, such an arrangement presents an ocular demonstration of the parts to be proved equal, and the learner retains the data throughout the whole of the reasoning. But whatever may be the advantages of the present plan, if it be not substituted for, it can always be made a powerful auxiliary to the other methods, for the purpose of introduction, or of a more speedy reminiscence, or of more permanent retention by the memory.

The experience of all who have formed systems to impress facts on the understanding, agree in proving that coloured representations, as pictures, cuts, diagrams, &c. are more easily fixed in the mind than mere sentences unmarked by any peculiarity. Curious as it may appear, poets seem to be aware of this fact more than mathematicians; many modern poets allude to this visible system of communicating knowledge, one of them has thus expressed himself:

This perhaps may be reckoned the only improvement which plain geometry has received since the days of Euclid, and if there were any geometers of note before that time, Euclid's success has quite eclipsed their memory, and even occasioned all good things of that kind to be assigned to him; like Aesop among the writers of Fables. It may also be worthy of remark, as tangible diagrams afford the only medium through which geometry and other linear