He had a pretty thorough knowledge of arithmetic; but he had never studied algebra or geometry.

As early as the Tenth Century, Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II., had passed into Spain and brought thence arithmetic, astronomy, and geometry; and five hundred years after, led by the old tradition of Moorish skill, Camille Leonard of Pisa sailed away over the sea into the distant East, and brought back the forgotten algebra and trigonometry,a rich lading, better than gold-dust or many negroes.

The father observes that another boy has learned algebra and geometry in the same time.

It’s the other ecclesiastical embroidery artist,—the one with the x in her name, suggesting the algebra of my vanishing youth.”

" "Well, I wish instead of teaching a few thousand students higher algebra that you had taught your own daughter a little common sense.

They did not understand algebra, by the application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and Apollonius.