Page:Philosophy and Fun of Algebra.djvu/36

PHILOSOPHY AND FUN OF ALGEBRA times give yourself a full stretch of body and mind by going to the boundless fairyland of your subject. Think how the great mathematicians can weigh the earth and measure the stars, and reveal the laws of the universe; and tell yourself that it is all one science, and that you are one of the servants of it, quite as much as ever Pythagoras or Newton were.

Never be satisfied with being up-to-date. Think, in your slack time, of how people before you did things. While you are at school my little book, Logic of Arithmetic, will help you to find out many things about your ancestors which may amuse and interest you; but, as soon as you leave school and choose your own reading, take care to read up the histories of the struggles and difficulties of the people who formerly dealt with your own subject (whatever that may be).

If you find the whole of the data too complicated to deal with, and judge that it is necessary to eliminate one or more of them, in order to reduce your material within the compass of your own power to manage, do it as a provisional necessity. 32