One of Ada’s maths tutors, Augustus De Morgan, was worried that too much maths might break Ada’s delicate constitution. At the same time, he believed her to be more gifted and able than any pupil (read boys) he had taught, and said in a letter to her mother that Ada could become ‘an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence’. Poor Ada. Told to study maths to avoid going poetically mad. Then told she was at risk of going mathematically mad.
