THE founder of this Lecture has chosen as one of his special interests the history of Mathematics, both through the ages and as reflected in the studies of the University. Within a short compass he has given an account of the
development of the subject which contrasts with the elaborate treatises of previous writers by its concentration on essentials, and also by the glimpses which it affords of the personalities of the mathematicians whose achievements he records, with their limitations and their failures, as well as their ambitions and successes.