CO129-328 - Governor Nathan - 1905 [1-6] — Page 151

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Enclosure 2.

Speech by the Governor.

His Excellency addressed those present as follows:-

Dr. Bateson Wright, I have to thank you, for your kind words of welcome. It has given me special pleasure to present the prizes to-day at this the principal school of the Colony, which has been estab- lished for over 40 years and has been for more than half of that períod ander your distinguished direction. The report which you have read to us is a business-liko document. The record average daily attendance of 1,000 boys shows the great and grow- ing importance of the institution. I note with satisfaction your good report on your staff and the special words of praise that have been given to the five masters of the Vernacular School. Your remarks on the work done by the scholars in the different subjects of study are also interesting

and lead me to hope that 1905 will be a year of promise.

Ladies and gentlemen,--You are probably by this time sufficiently familiar with my methods to antici- pate that I shall pick out the weak subject of the school as the one to discuss on this occasion. In order not to disappoint you I will take as a text for my remarks the following paragraph from the Head Master's report: "Mathematics were very weak, algebra being the best sub- ject, Euclid and mensuration the worst. Book-keeping in class la pro- duced a fiasco, serious blunders vitiating 70 per cent, of the papers. Instruction in mathematics at Queen's College is confined to four elementary subjects: Arithmetic, including book-keeping, plane geometry, mensuration and algebra. At my request Dr. Bateson Wright has consented to add trigonometry 26 subject of study in the higher classes. The practical uses of arithmetic are too obvious to require exposition. It is used in the home as well as in the office, in every enumeration, mea surement, financial calculation or manipulation of statistics. Arith- metical operations are necessary for overy other branch of mathematics not purely geometrical. Just as figures can be used to represent lines and areas so lines and areas can re- present figures. The problems con- nected with lines and areas those dealt with by plane geometry or Euclid, as the subject is often termed in our schools from the an- cient Alexandrian who ingeniously, and logically put together a number of those problems. The combina- tion of arithmetic and geometry is the science of mensuration, an en- tirely practical science for obtaining in arithmetical terms areas of plane figures and contents, weights and values of solids. It is by mensura- tion that the inorchant and the cus- toms officer ascertain the contents

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of a cask, the surveyor the area of field, and the engineer the weight any part of his structure. The sical uses of algebra in which ures, lines, areas and contents are represented by alphabetical symbols, are, except for furnishing methods of manipulation for higher branches of mathematics, a little less obvious than the uses of arithmetic and mensuration, and the science is more open to the danger of its processes being carried out without a full knowledge of their meaning. It is certainly not often that the problems of daily life can be solved by equations, simple or quadratic, though these equations have their purposes to which I shall presently refer. Familiarity with progressions arithmetical, har- monic, and geometrical-produces neatness of arrangement often of practical utility. I have myself on various occasions had to remodel scales of salaries, allowances, re- wards, etc., to a logical system with a first term and a common difference. Trigonometry is in some degree a continuation of mensuration bring- ing in calculations based on angles between straight lines in the case of plane and. between circular ares in the case of spherical trigonome- try. No man can become a surveyor, an engineer or navigator without a knowledge of the solution of triangles, that is the calculation of unmeasured from measured sides and angles, which involves being able to solve algebraic equations and to use logarithms. Though the theory of logarithms is difficult their use is simple and mechanical, and by sub- stituting processes of addition and subtraction for the more lengthy ones of multiplication and division enormously simplifies complicated caloulations. This is one instance in which the work of advanced ma- thematicians is used to facilitate the practical employment of ma- thematics by those who have only studied the elements, and if we were to go on and consider the higher branches of the subject we should find many other instances in which the formulao derived from difficult processes are made available for the daily use of the engineer, the ship- builder, the navigator and others in simpler walks of life who make use of the results obtained by mathema- ticians without knowing that they do Of these higher branches, 28 they are not taught in this College, it would be su- perfluous now to speak, except to say that the few boys here who may be tempted by mathemati- cal aptitude to go beyond their school courses, will find the subject more and more fascinating with each advance in it. This fascina- tion is nearly a defect in the study, which developing as it does the reasoning power to the highest ex- tent is held by some to be inimical

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