Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/82

OF LONG AGO Robert added numbers much as Caius did, placing the counters on the lines and in the spaces. When he had five counters on a line or in a space he took them carried one counter to the next place. You now see how we came to say “carry one” when we add, a counter being actually carried to the next place in the days of Robert Record. When Robert became a man he wrote several books and used his influence to have the English people give up the Roman numerals.

We are apt to smile at Robert’s use of counters and to think that we are much wiser than he because we use pencil and paper. But it is well to know that most of the world to-day finds it better not to use pencil and paper for computing. The Russians very generally use an abacus, many Persians use one, the Chinese 59