Word: euclid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...easy. The applicant is examined in some Greek play, generally Euripides, or in Homer and Thucydides, in Virgil or some other of the Latin classics; must translate a short English passage into Latin prose, answer some questions on grammar, show a fair familiarity with arithmetic, and know something of Euclid or algebra. But if he possess special excellence in any one of these studies he is pretty certain to be admitted, even though he be weak in the rest. Oxford has a great tendency to foster special abilities...
...with some reflections on fashionable education; children, he deplores, are taught that "what they are is of little consequence, but what they appear to-be is of importance inestimable." Young men read novels, and the "sight of a classic author gives them a chill, a lesson in Locke or Euclid a mental ague." Young ladies "sink down to songs, novels, and plays." The reverend President is particularly severe towards the young ladies, and solemnly warns them that "between the Bible and novels there is a gulf fixed which few novel-readers are willing to pass"; and then he paints quite...