"When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books You will be reading meanings"

Mastery of numbers transcends rote calculation or the mechanical act of recognizing digits on a page. W. E. B. Du Bois draws a parallel between literacy in language and fluency in numeracy; where a novice painstakingly deciphers each letter or number, an adept individual perceives whole ideas or concepts at once. Just as an experienced reader no longer consciously spells out each word but absorbs meaning from sentences and paragraphs, someone skilled in mathematics no longer simply identifies numbers, they intuitively apprehend the deeper relationships, patterns, and implications those numbers hold.

Numbers, at a basic level, are symbols carrying quantitative information. For beginners, arithmetic and numerals are a foreign tongue, requiring time and focus to translate into understanding. With experience and insight, however, numbers become a language of their own. The skilled mind looks past their superficial representation to uncover underlying truths, trends, magnitudes, proportions, anomalies, and the intricate stories contained within datasets, equations, or statistics.

This journey is analogous to evolving from decoding text to gaining comprehension and insight. When engaged with literature, one seeks the author’s purpose, themes, and emotional undertones; so too, mastering numbers means seeking the significance hidden in figures and computations. A table of statistics or a complex graph does not merely present data, but offers narratives about reality, economic shifts, social changes, human behavior, or scientific phenomena.

Such mastery enables a person to interpret and critically assess information rather than remain confined to surface-level facts. It fosters discernment, enabling one to spot trends, predict outcomes, and challenge assumptions. Ultimately, for W. E. B. Du Bois, the goal is an active, meaningful engagement with information: to use numbers as tools for understanding and transformation rather than as inert objects to be memorized or recited. This is when numbers truly become a language of meaning.