Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/90

OF LONG AGO years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, it is interesting to know that only thirty-four years later, in 1556, an arithmetic was printed in the City of Mexico.

We do not know how Cuthbert was taught to multiply, but his book tells us what he thought was the best method. This was very much like our own except that he did not know our short way of multiplying by zero, or, as he called it, “by a circle.“

HOW CUTHBERT MULTIPLIED From Cuthbert Tonstall’s arithmetic of 1522, showing the method of multiplication used by him

Thus we see that this great man could not multiply as easily as you can.

Just before Cuthbert's time there was a boy named Johann Widman (yōhän' vĭd'män) 67