It is but right... to apprise you that, diffident of my own decision, the favorable opinion I favor of your performance is founded rather on the explicit and ample testimonies of Gentlemen confessedly possessed of great mathematical knowledge, than on the partial and incompetent attention I have been able to pay to it myself.—But I must be permitted to remark that the subject, in my estimation, holds a higher rank in the literary scale than you are disposed to allow.—The science of figures, to a certain degree, is not only indispensably requisite in every walk of civilised life; but investigation of mathematical truths accustoms the mind to method and correctness in reasoning, and is an employment peculiarly worthy of rational beings. In a clouded state of existence, where so many things appear precarious to the bewildered research, it is here that the rational faculties find a firm foundation to rest upon. From the high ground of mathematical and philosophical demonstration, we are insensibly led to far nobler speculations and sublimer meditations.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "It is but right... to apprise you that, diffident of my own decision, the favorable opinion I favor of your performance is founded rather on the explicit and ample testimonies of Gentlemen confessedly possessed of great mathematical knowledge, than on the partial and incompetent attention I have been able to pay to it myself.—But I must be permitted to remark that the subject, in my estimation, holds a higher rank in the literary scale than you are disposed to allow.—The science of figures, to a certain degree, is not only indispensably requisite in every walk of civilised life; but investigation of mathematical truths accustoms the mind to method and correctness in reasoning, and is an employment peculiarly worthy of rational beings. In a clouded state of existence, where so many things appear precarious to the bewildered research, it is here that the rational faculties find a firm foundation to rest upon. From the high ground of mathematical and philosophical demonstration, we are insensibly led to far nobler speculations and sublimer meditations." in the context of "George Washington, Letter to Nicholas Pike (June 20, 1788) responding to Pike's 1788 edition of The New Complete System of Arithmetic: Composed for the Use of the Citizens of the United States, first published in the American Bookmaker (Apr, 1888) and as quoted in "Pike's Arithmetic," The American Stationer (April 19, 1888) Vol. 23, p.803." to mean that wisdom is timeless.