A manuscript sum-book in my possession is marked, "Sarah Keeler her Book, May ye 1st, A.D. 1773, Ridgbury." There are multiplication examples of fifteen figures multiplied by fifteen, and long division examples of a dividend of quintillions, chiefly in sevens and nines, divided by a mixed divisor of billions in eights and fives—a thing to make poor Sarah turn in her grave. There are Reductions Ascending and Reductions Descending and Reductions both Ascending and Descending at the same time, as complicated as the computations of the revolutions of the celestial spheres. There are miserable catch-examples about people's ages and others about collections of excises, with "Proofs," and still others about I know not what, for there are within their borders mysterious abbreviations and signs, like some black magic. Sainted Sarah Keeler! a melancholy sympathy settles on me as I regard this book and all the extended sums you knew, and think of the paths of pleasantness of the present pupils of kindergartens; and wonder what kind of a mathematical song or game or allegory could be invented to disguise these very "plain figures."
Sometimes a zealous teacher would write out tables of measures and a few blind rules for his scholars. This amateur arithmetic would be copied and recopied until it was punctuated with mistakes.
Cocker's
ARITHMETICK:
BEING
A plain and familiar Method, ſuitable to the meaneſt Capacity, for the full underſtanding of that incomparable Art, as it is now taught by the ableſt School-Maſters in City and Country.
Composed
By Edward Cocker, late Practitioner in the Arts of Writing, Arithmetick, and Engraving. Being that ſo long ſince promiſed to the World.