QUOTE : In fact, so detailed was his interest in mathematics, and so acute his understanding, that he had recently written an original proof of the Pythagorean Theorem during a free moment at the capital. The New England Journal of Education had published the proof just the month before, transparently astonished that a member of congress had written it. Despite Garfield's deep admiration for mathematics and the arts, however, he believed that it was science, above all other disciplines that had achieved the greatest good.