These sticks were of different lengths and
dimensions, according to the number marked on them; so that by looking
at the inscription, you could tell the size, or by seeing or feeling the
size, you could tell the number.
The master now made his appearance, and learning our errand, was very
communicative. He descanted on the advantages of this manual, and ocular
mode of teaching the science of numbers, and gave us practical
illustrations of its efficacy, by examining his pupils in our presence.
He told the first boy he called up, and who did not seem to be more than
seven or eight years of age, to add 5, 3, and 7 together, and tell him
the result. The little fellow set about hunting, with great alacrity,
over his bag, until he found a piece divided like three fingers, then a
piece with five divisions, and lastly, one with seven, and putting them
side by side, he found the piece of a correspondent length, and thus, in
less than eight minutes and a half, answered, "fifteen." The ingenious
master then exercised another boy in subtraction, and a third in
multiplication: but the latter was thrown into great confusion, for one
of the pieces having lost a division, it led him to a wrong result.
The teacher informed us that he taught geometry in the same way, and had
even extended it to grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the art of
composition. The rules of syntax were discovered by pieces of wood,
interlocking with each other in squares, dovetails, &c.
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