Finger Counting was Common Among Earlier Peoples, and was Brought to a Fair Degree of Efficiency by South Africans
Courtesy of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.
The “Abacus” was One of the Earliest Aids to Calculation
It is still used extensively in China, and occasionally will be found in Chinese laundries in the United States.
Courtesy of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.
The Oriental tradesman does not deign to perplex himself by a process of mental arithmetic; he seizes his abacus, prepares it by a tilt, makes a few rapid, clicking movements and his calculations are completed. We always look with some slight contempt upon this method of calculation, but a little experience and investigation would tend to transform this contempt into admiration, for it may be safely asserted that even the simplest of all arithmetical operations, the abacus, possesses distinctive advantages over the mental or figuring process. In competition in simple addition between a “lightning calculator” and an ordinary Japanese small tradesman, the Japanese would easily win the contest.