The mathematician of to-day admits that he can neither square the circle, duplicate the cube or trisect the angle. May not our mechanicians, in like manner, be ultimately forced to admit that aerial flight is one of that great class of problems with which men can never cope... I do not claim that this is a necessary conclusion from any past experience. But I do think that success must await progress of a different kind from that of invention.

My father followed, during most of his life, the precarious occupation of a country school teacher.

The time was not yet ripe for the growth of mathematical science among us, and any development that might have taken place in that direction was rudely stopped by the civil war.

I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within.

James Edward Oliver might have been one of the great mathematicians of his time had he not been absolutely wanting in the power of continuous work.

Construction of an aerial vehicle which can carry even a single man . . . requires the discovery of some new metal or force. Even with such a discovery, we could not expect one to do more than carry its owner.

If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard.