IMPORTANCE OF THE MATHEMATICAL STUDIES, CONSIDERED AS A BRANCH OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION.

By A. Cagwell, Professor of Math. and Nat. Phil., Brown University.

THE object of a Liberal Education is not merely the acquisition of facts and principles, but also the attainment of skill and power in the varied uses of facts and principles. The former is of course, preparatory to the latter. The great object, I do not say the only one, of that early education, which may be denominated liberal, in distinction from that which is merely mechanical or physical, is the discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. To the accomplishment of this end, all the resources of education are made subservient. She directs her efforts to the attainment of a delicate and refined taste; of a bold and fertile, yet chastened imagination;—of a discriminating judgment;-of a severe and rigid deduction ;-of a cautious and yet comprehensive generalization. These are the powers which give preeminence to mind. Acting in concert, they appear, as the one or the other predominates, in the forms of sublime poetry, and impassioned eloquence, and profound reasoning. VOL. VII. No. 21.

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