PREFACE

The career of the Elements of Euclid has been of an extraordinary and indeed unique character. For two thousand years or more it has served for text-book to countless students, and to-day it is a work with which all Englishmen are more or less familiar, whilst the name of its writer is a household word throughout the civilized world.

And yet so lacking in curiosity are we of this country, although I do not know that other people have shown themselves much more inquisitive in the matter, that there does not exist, so far as I am aware, any small book of this sort to tell us what in the Story of Euclid is of interest or importance for busy men and women to know. Even in school books, I venture to suggest, there is a quite unaccountable lack of that historical and philosophical information which it is the aim of this little volume in some degree to communicate, and so in writing this brief sketch of Euclidian lore I have had in mind younger as well as older people. 

Excerpt from the Preface