Presidential Address to the London Branch of the Mathematical Association

Extract

WHEN your chairman, Mr. Jackson, asked me to supply a title for the Presidential Address, I could think of no name short enough and suitable for these random remarks, à bâtons rompus for half an hour.

Professor Turner gave the Mathematical Association an account of some new methods in calculation, found successful for Halley’s Comet; and Ray Lankester held forth in the afternoon on his perennial subject of the place of Greek in education, about which Turner has given you his say on a previous occasion.

I must avow myself at the outset in complete disagreement with their opinion, as in Greek we come to the bedrock of all our knowledge in history, literature, science, and art. Greek is the lighthouse to guide us out of barbarism to the human ideal.