When asked by Ptolemy if the science could not be mastered by some easier method than the ordinary one. Dr. Johnson said, “I hate by-roads in education.”—BOSWELL: Life, 1775. It was a maxim of Dr. Parr’s, “Greek and Latin are consecrated temples which are only to be entered through the vestibule.” Plato wrote over the entrance to the Academy, “He who is ignorant of geometry may remain outside;” which led Goethe to call it “the door of philosophy.”
