It was all because, having got the earth properly constructed and set
up, as it were, I undertook to explain about latitude and longitude.
Figures came in there, and I was never strong at mathematics.
My education in that branch had run into a snag about the middle
of the little multiplication table. A boy from the "plebs" school
challenged me to fight, as I was making my way to recitation,
trying to learn the table by heart. I broke off in the middle of
the sixes to wallop him, and never got any farther. The class went
on that day without me, and I never overtook it. I made but little
effort. In the Latin School, which rather prided itself upon being
free from the commercial taint, mathematics was held to be in the
nature of an intrusion, and it was a sort of good mark for a boy
that he did not take to it, if at the same time he showed aptitude
for language. So I was left to deplore with Marjorie Fleming to
the end of my days the inherent viciousness of sevens and eights,
as "more than human nature can endure." It is one of the ironies
of life that I should have had to take up work into which the study
of statistics enters largely.
Pages:
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105