This gave Bill Dunham a title befitting his most excellent book, [Dunham 1998] but there are other ways to translate it. Because “notre…à tous” can mean “of us all” or “notre” can be assigned to modify “maître”, leaving “à tous” to mean “all things”, other valid translations include:

St. Petersburg 1766–1783

In Part 1 of this column [Sandifer Jan 2010] we looked at what is known about Euler the Teacher during his first St. Petersburg period (1727–1741) and his time in Berlin (1741– 1766). Condorcet [Condorcet 1786] gives us some accounts of Euler's teaching in his second St. Petersburg period:

His sons and students copied his calculations and wrote by dictation the remaining Méemoires.

It can be seen that he much preferred the education of his students than the small satisfaction derived from astonishment; he never believed that he had truly done enough for Science if he did not feel that that he had added new truths to enrich it and the exposure of the simplicity of the idea which lead him there.

Of the sixteen professors attached to the Saint Petersburg Academy eight were trained under him and all are known through their works and have been awarded various academic distinctions and are proud to add the title of Euler's disciples.

Condorcet goes on to mention some of the people who studied under Euler, his two sons, Lexell, and Fuss in particular, and that Fuss married one of Euler's granddaughters.

Except for disclaiming “the small satisfaction derived from astonishment,” this does little to tell us about how Euler taught or why he was effective.