Clarity is Not Enough

Extract

A Striking thing about contemporary education is the increasing demand for mathematical training. In the eighteenth century the only departments of science which conspicuously called for it were astronomy and such branches of mechanics and optics as had arisen in connection with astronomical pursuits. Navigation was perhaps the only important profession for which any mathematical equipment was an indispensable prerequisite. Though an eighteenth century H. G. Wells might have anticipated minor avenues of future employment for professional mathematicians as teachers attached to artillery or actuarial work, he would scarcely have foreseen that chemistry, power production, genetics, psychology and social statistics would severally enlist the services of the mathematician. The educational problem which arises from the rapid mathematisation of science during the past half-century has found us unprepared, and is largely an unsolved one.