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Show Counts Time Spent on Study of "Math" Wasted I believe that an appalling amount "i of time is spent in childhood la learning things which don't matter, remembering tilings which will never be needed, and doing silly tricks which an intelligent man need never waste his time upon. Let us contemplate, for example, the absurdities and abominations ot arithmetic. At a conservative estimate, esti-mate, I have myself wrestled with arithmetic and Us related studies through ten years of my irreplaceable irreplace-able youth. I was, moreover, pretty good at It ; I could throw a mean logarithm and chase a cotangent into a corner and hang my hat on it. I have done all the geometry, plain and. fancy, and dabbled delicately in calculus. I could once make an advanced algebraic alge-braic equation say "Uncle." I assure you that not a trace of it is left, and that furthermore I don't miss it. There must be a large blank area in my brain which was once full of arithmetic, but It isn't the least painful. Except for a reasonable reason-able facility with the multiplication table there isn't a particle of arithmetic arith-metic left in my system. . I can make change, hut so can a street car conductor. But I can't re-member re-member more than five telephone numbers, and so long as they continue con-tinue to print telephone books 1 won't need to. Donald Rose In the Forum and Century. |