Immaculate Heart of Mary School Newsletter

July:2015

Mathematics and Christian Education

By Br. Francis, M.I.C.M
Nothing could be more distinctive of the age in which we live than the overpowering
prominence of mathematics. All through the Catholic centuries, arithmetic and geometry
constituted all the mathematics that an educated Christian was asked to learn. Even these two
subjects were treated from a more contemplative point of view, which made them far more
harmonious with other liberal studies. Arithmetic consisted in the study of the properties of
numbers; geometry in the study of shapes and figures. When not overdone, and when
counterbalanced by the proper correctives from the other types of knowledge, geometry and
arithmetic, as they used to be taught, cultivated a few desirable virtues of the mind like clarity
and precision, and sharpened the mind for the perception of harmony, rhythm, and pattern in
the study of nature and of Holy Scripture. But even then, many saints and sages warned
against the excessive preoccupation with such studies, and especially against the seductive
clarity of mathematics; for it is not enough for the mind to be accurate and clear; we are
bound to ask accurate and clear about what? Since in mathematics accuracy and clarity are
achieved at the price of the reality and the goodness of the object, it is a danger of the
mathematical mind to continue to sacrifice reality and goodness for the sake of clarity in every
other field in which man must seek and find the truth.
To read the article in full, click here.

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Sister Mary Josephs Puzzle Corner

The story goes that a truck driver was pulled over by a policeman and told that his
truck had to be inspected. The officer suspected it was overloaded. As soon as the driver
had driven his truck onto a weighing machine, he jumped out of the cab and started
pounding the side of the truck with a piece of wood. A bystander asked the driver what
he was doing.
"Well," he replied, "I'm carrying 5,000 pounds of live canaries in the truck. I know
that my truck is overloaded, but if I can get the birds to keep flying around inside the
truck their weight won't show up on the scales."
Is this true? If the birds are kept flying inside the enclosed box of the truck, will
the truck really weigh less than if the birds were sitting on their perches?

The Solution to Last Month's Puzzle:

Mr. Patrick Flannigan looked up from a book he was reading on famous dreams and
said to his wife: Listen to this story! It's really amazing!
Dublin, Ireland, April 1, 1903. Mr. Kent had the following dream: Having gone to bed
after reading a book about King Arthur's Court, Mr. Kent dreamt that he was jousting against
the dreaded Black Knight. He was thrown from his horse, and as he lay upon the ground, the
Black Knight came speeding towards him with his lance aimed straight at Mr. Kent. At this
point, Mr. Kents wife woke up, and seeing her husband having a nightmare, she poked him in
the stomach in order to wake him up. Mr. Kent screamed in his sleep, grabbed his stomach,
and fell back onto the bed dead from a heart attack.
Mr. Flannigan put the book down and exhorted his wife: All I can say, Mary, is never
wake me up in the middle of a nightmare!
That's quite a story, all right, Patrick, replied Martha, but I don't believe any of it.
Any one can see that that story isnt true.
How did Martha know that the story wasnt true?
Solution:
Martha knew that since Mr. Kent never woke up, no one could possibly know what he
had been dreaming about.

Immaculate Heart of Mary School

95 Fay Martin Rd.
Richmond, NH 03470
Tel: 603-239-6495
Fax: 603-239-4502
ihmschool@catholicism.org