Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Education, Schools, Mathematics, Textbooks, Class, Astronomy

    Complains that in Scottish public schools earlier in the century 'Arithmetic was taught [...] by an entirely mechanical and illogical process' in which the boys 'committed to memory the multiplication table, [and] were given over to somebody's "Arithmetic", to puzzle over rules and make our answers to the questions tally, by any means whatever, with those in the book' (225). Nevertheless, in the Scottish education system, 'No distinction of rank was preserved in any way whatever. The laird's son and the grave-digger's son stood up in class side by side' (223), and both 'the middle and lower classes in Scotland have a passion for learning'. Indeed, the author recalls that 'Our herd-boy taught himself the elements of astronomy out in the fields, while tending the cattle', and he eventually went to university where 'he carried off the first mathematical prize'. (228)