The Ladder with Twenty-Four Rungs
The Duke of Argyll was pleasantly surprised to find one of his gardeners reading a learned book of mathematics - in Latin.
1720
The Duke of Argyll was pleasantly surprised to find one of his gardeners reading a learned book of mathematics - in Latin.
1720
Edward Stone (1702-1768), mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society, and the man who gave us aspirin, was self-taught. His story reminds us that the purpose of education is not to tell us what to think, but to give us the tools we need to think for ourselves.
THE Duke of Argyll was puzzled one day to find a copy of Newton’s recently-published ‘Principia’* lying on the grass. He summoned a passing gardener, an eighteen-year-old named Edward Stone, and instructed him to return the wandering book to his library.
Edward, however, replied that it was his own personal copy.
It turned out that Edward had taught himself to read ten years before, after some stonemasons working on the Duke’s house had stopped to answer his questions about their business.
They spoke of Arithmetic, and Geometry, and a fascinated Edward had immediately gone out to buy a book about each of them.
On being told of some good textbooks in Latin, he bought a Latin dictionary and worked his way through them, too. And then he did the same in French.
“It seems to me” he told the admiring Duke “that one does not need to know anything more than the twenty-four letters** to learn everything else that one wishes.”
‘Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica’ (1687), by Sir Isaac Newton. The events in this story took place in about 1720.
** There are twenty-four letters in the Latin alphabet, the language in which Newton’s ground-breaking book was written.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Why did the Duke assume that the copy of ‘Principia’ had come from his own library?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
The Duke found a book on the grass. He asked Edward to return the book to his library. Edward said it was his own copy.