At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins
Page 8
CHAPTER VIII.
ABOUT MATHEMATICS AND ME.
I was a very difficult pupil to place, having been overeducated in somesubjects and absolutely neglected in others. I might have gone with theseniors in English and History; was normal in Latin, that is, sophomore,where girls of my age were put; was just beginning French; and had to gowith the kids in Mathematics. I had never played a game of tennis in mylife nor even seen a game of basketball, but I was naturally athleticfrom the free country life I had led, and it was soon realized inathletic circles that I would be on the team with a little coaching.
I was glad to see that Miss Cox was to teach me Arithmetic. Miss Peytonhoped I could get into Algebra by Christmas and then, with hard studyand earnest coaching, perhaps catch up with the class. I had a feelingthat Miss Cox and I were going to pull together if she could just letherself go. Her manner in the class was rather wooden, but she was anexcellent teacher and the girls were quick to recognize that, so whileshe was not popular, she was not disliked.
I was such a stupid in Mathematics that I was afraid she might put medown as a dunce and lose all interest in me, but the fact that I read"Alice in Wonderland" seemed to be in my favor.
"Page, I will not have you look upon yourself as hopeless inArithmetic," she said to me one day when I despaired of everunderstanding what seemed to me a very intricate problem. "Lewis Carrollwas a great mathematician and still he wrote the delicious classic thatyou and I are so fond of. Now I think minds that appreciate the samethings must be similar. I believe there is a corner of your brain thatis absolutely unexplored and that corner corresponds to the greatfertile area in Lewis Carroll's. All it needs in you is working,digging, cultivating to produce fruit."
"Oh, Miss Cox, how splendid of you to look at it that way! I am going totry awfully hard to work my poor, little, neglected, unused plot ofbrain with all my might. If I can't grow anything but green persimmons,that would be better than nothing."
"Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision are the hard things.If you look at it right, one side of Mathematics is really romantic."
Father always said the way to control me was through my imagination andMiss Cox had surely hit on my weakness. The result was that Mathematicswas no longer dry-as-dust to me. I found it had been a closed bookbecause I had never been interested enough to open it. I soonoutstripped the kids in my class and was put in a higher one. I had toread frequent chapters of "Alice in Wonderland" to cheer me on, and MissCox used to quote Lewis Carroll to me when she and I were alone. I foundthe other girls in the classes looked upon her as nothing but a teacherand she regarded them as mere pupils, to be taught conscientiously andthen dismissed.
One day I sailed safely through a problem that was noted as a regularstumper. As soon as the class was dismissed, Miss Cox exclaimed:
"'Come to my arms, my beamish boy. You've slain the Jabberwock.' Page, Ireally believe you are going to end by being a pretty goodmathematician."
I answered:
"'He thought he saw a Garden Door That opened with a key: He looked again, and found it was A Double Rule of Three: 'And all its mystery,' he said, 'Is clear as day to me!'
If I ever understand it, it will be thanks to you and Lewis Carroll!"
The Tuckers had been to school pretty steadily all their lives, so theywere able to go into the sophomore class in everything. I bitterlyregretted that my education had been so erratic, but determined to makethe best of it. Dum helped me with my French and we tried to keep to ourrule of talking French at the table; but as we did what Mammy Susancalled our own "retching" and my vocabulary was somewhat limited, wehad to resort to English a great deal or go unfed.
I know Dum and Dee felt sorry for me for being in a kids' class inMathematics. I didn't really mind nearly so much as they thought I did.The kids were nice to me and I made some mighty good friends among them.
There was one little bunchy girl named Mary Flannigan who turned out inthe end one of the best friends I ever had in my life. She was short andstumpy, with scrambled red hair and a freckled face and the very keenestsense of humor I had ever known. She was a year younger than I was butvery well up in her classes, and she had a genius for mimicry that wasirresistibly funny. She had some stunts that endeared her to all thegirls. She could do a dog fight or cats on the back fence; and could goso like a mosquito that you were certain you would be bitten in amoment. She was something of a ventriloquist, which made theseaccomplishments especially delightful.
Mary and I were put into Algebra at the same time, and to our joy MissCox was to teach us. Mary had found out Miss Cox, too. Tweedles and Ihad religiously refrained from telling any of the girls about her madrevel on the day of our arrival, but we had tried to make themunderstand what a very good old girl she was if you could just find herout; and our attitude toward her was having its effect on the wholeschool. Miss Cox, realizing that she was really liked and understood,had a change of expression as well as heart. Her sad, crooked face wasnow a happy, crooked face and she no longer saved her jokes for Tweedlesand me, but got them off indiscriminately, and very good jokes theywere, too. The classes in voice culture became more popular, and moreand more girls wrote home begging to be allowed to "take singing."
I shall never forget Mary's and my first lesson in Algebra. Miss Coxlooked at us with her twisted smile.
"Algebra is rather a poetical-sounding name, don't you think?" she askedus.
"Maybe it is," said Mary, "but I bet it takes it out in sounding so."
"Oh, I don't know about that," and Miss Cox opened the book at the firstpage and read as follows: "'In Algebra, the operations of Arithmetic areabridged and generalized by means of Symbols.' That appeals to theimagination somewhat, I think. 'Symbols which represent numbers.' Justthat word 'Symbol' sets me to dreaming. Arithmetic is the prose ofMathematics where everything is stated and nothing left to theimagination, but Algebra is very different. 'Known Numbers are usuallyrepresented by the first letters of the alphabet, as a, b, c. UnknownNumbers, or those whose values are to be determined, are usuallyrepresented by the last letters of the alphabet, as x, y, z.' Theunknown numbers,--the mysterious numbers,--for what is unknown is in ameasure mysterious and what is mysterious is romantic or poetic. That isthe way I think of it. In working your Algebra, don't just look at it ashard, dry facts to be mastered, but let x, y, z be the Great Unknownthat you are to find. Let the problem be a plot that you are to unravelas Poe did 'The Gold Bug.'"
You may well imagine that Mary and I set to with a will to get all wecould out of such a thrilling subject. There were times when we feltthat Miss Cox was drawing a little on her imagination to find poetry insuch an example as this, for instance:
4x^{-2/3}-3x^{-1/3}-27=0
On the whole, though, Algebra was much more interesting than Arithmetic,and sometimes I had the realization that it did mean a lot to me; andMary said she felt the same way. Anyhow, in the early spring we wereable to take the sophomore tests and go on in that class. Miss Peytonsaid she considered it really wonderful that I should have progressed sorapidly, but I told her it was all due to Miss Cox's being so certainthat Lewis Carroll and I had similar brains.