On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our eighth installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge.

This time, Philip’s father considers why boys study geometry and trigonometry, while young ladies consider themselves unsuited for those subjects even though they solve complex problems in embroidery design. The problem, he concludes, is that the subject is not taught in a way that is meaningful to the student. “Is it not because learning was confined to a few during the Middle Ages, and they made an unnecessary mystery of it? And so the schoolmen have continued to the present time, jealous of their methods, and insistent upon one’s looking through their spectacles and no other?”

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