Essay 62: Do you agree that the study of Mathematics

is essential to the progress of the human race?

Though the study of Mathematics had occupied the attention of Egyptian and Greek scholars
centuries ago, yet it was only after the advent of the Industrial Revolution that the importance of
the subject was fully realised by scholars and educationists everywhere. Today, Mathematics is
one of the most important subjects in all the schools and universities of the world.

Before the Industrial Revolution, men lived very simple lives. Agriculture, hunting and fishing
were then their main sources of livelihood. It did not occur to them that their lives could be
made more comfortable if they only exercised their mental faculties a little more and organised a
system of knowledge, which we now call the Science, and applied it to practical purposes. Thus,
they turned to nature for sustenance, and were satisfied with what they could acquire from
nature with their skills. This simple mode of existence was, however, disturbed by the inventions
of a few men, sometime in the eighteenth century, which caused people everywhere to think of
new ways of improving their conditions of living. The inventions revealed new sources of
comfort, and power for the production of goods. Thus, the Industrial Revolution began. More
and more machines were invented for the rapid production of goods, and the study of
Mathematics began to receive great encouragement, for it was realised that machines function
on mathematical principles.