Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/92

OF LONG AGO arithmetic teacher. In this school Johann learned how to multiply in the way that Cuthbert did, although he also learned how to multiply with counters as the German merchants did at that time.

When Johann became a man he wrote an arithmetic, and in this he used the signs for plus ( + ) and minus ( — ). This was the first time these signs were ever printed.

The way in which Cuthbert and Johann multiplied was not the only one followed in those days. Some teachers ruled the paper in squares like a chessboard, writing a figure in each square, and they called their plan the chessboard method. Others ruled the paper so that it looked like an iron grating, and they called this the grating method.

These are some of the ways in which the world tried its hand at multiplying, and that is all the story we shall have to-night about Cuthbert and Leonardo and Johann.

“I don't see,” said the Tease, “how they ruled the paper in the grating plan. I don't see what it means.” 69