Talk:James Fitzjames Stephen

Copyediting
I attempted to approximately demarcate the appropriate sections for the article, and added information about his personal life (I used the 'citation needed' template because I wasn't sure the references I found were the best ones, they can be found here and here). Far be it for me to criticize the Encyclopedia Britannica, but the article suffers from clunky, obscure, obtuse, and sometimes even POV wording that should be made more concise. Eliz81 16:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I quote: "Although an outstanding student he did not win any prizes, mainly because he was uninterested in mathematics or classics, which formed the basis of the course." - Erm...a (presumably unintentionally hilarious) contradiction surely? Perhaps the word 'intellect' would be a little more appropriate than 'student'?Johnpretty010 (talk) 21:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I had a look at the online public-domain 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (Vol 25, p.883), linked above by Eliz81, and this is what it says: "Notwithstanding exceptional vigour in mind and body, he did not attain any of the usual scholastic or athletic distinctions.  The only studies then seriously prosecuted in the university course were mathematics and classics. Neither of these attracted him in their academical forms, nor did he care for competitive sport." I wouldn't want pompous prose like that in the article, but it's somewhat different from Eliz81 (or whoever)'s paraphrase.  I don't think that mathematics and classics "formed the basis of the course" (it would be a rather bizarre course, it seems to me).  How about substituting something like "His intellect was highly regarded, but he was not interested in either mathematics or classics, the only subjects that were taken seriously at the time", which might give a better result. --GuillaumeTell 16:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * To modern ears a university course concentrating on the classics and mathematics may sound bizarre, but that was probably the case at Cambridge in his time. Cambridge has been noted for mathematics for centuries. I don't know if details of the BA course in his time are readily available, but for comparison there are detailed syllabuses of the course at Trinity College Dublin at about the same time in two histories which are available online. They make it clear that the main compulsory subjects were the Latin and Greek classics, together with theology (concentrating on the Greek bible) and also a different science subject in each of the four years. Just what a schoolmaster or aspiring clergyman would have needed, in the days before modern languages (or even English) were taught. The balance at Cambridge may have been different. NRPanikker (talk) 18:26, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * To give a bit more of context, until the second part of the 19th century the only two Tripos in existence were Mathematics and Classics (one could read Law, but it was not a Tripos and was considered an easy way for stupid gentlemen to obtain the requisite degree for ordination in the Church of England). Accordingly almost all the prizes and fellowships at that time were in either Maths or Classics, and someone without interest in either would not do very well. A generation later F. W. Maitland encountered the same problem, although a Moral Philosophy tripos had been introduced in the meantime. Atchom (talk) 22:54, 19 July 2019 (UTC)