Arithmetic

the art of computation, the most elementary branch of mathematics. The system of arithmetic in use among enlightened nations is usually known as the Arabic, but it should be called the Hindu arithmetic. While the subject of elementary geometry, with some indebtedness to the Egyptians and to the Phoenicians, is essentially a product of the Grecian, that is to say, of a European mind, our present system of elementary arithmetic was brought almost to its present degree of development by a kindred race in the fertile valleys of India. Several volumes of early Hindu learning have preserved a record of their arithmetic. The following problem from the Ganges is couched in the flowery language of the East. It dates about the year 500, a period when the Angles and Saxons were just getting the upper hand in the fens of eastern England.

Beautiful maiden with beaming eyes, tell me, as thou understandest the right method of inversion, which is the number which multiplied by 3, then increased by 3/4 of the product, divided by 7, diminished by 1/3 of the quotient, multiplied by itself, diminished by 52, the square root extracted, addition of 8, and division by 10, gives the number 2?

Many other Hindu problems have been handed down implying a knowledge of interest, discount, partnership, alligation, arithmetical and geometrical series, and many curious methods for the solution of numerical puzzles.

The sudden rise of the Moslem power in Arabia and its rapid expansion until it extended from India to the Pyrenees is phenomenal. Haroun-al-Raschid, the Charlemagne of the Arabians, drew learned men from all directions to his court at Bagdad. These men taught the Arabians the mathematics of the West and of the East, the geometry of Greece and the arithmetic of India. This learning the Arabs carried along the northern coast of Africa into Spain, where they founded noted schools and universities at Cordova and elsewhere. European students, attracted by the fame of the Moslem universities, resorted thither in disguise, it is said, and brought away a knowledge of the so-called Arabian arithmetic. It is supposed also that the merchants of southern Europe, dealing with Saracenic customers, obtained a practical knowledge of the mercantile arithmetic employed by the Arabian merchants. And so our school arithmetic in all its essential features originated, so far as we know, among the Brahmins in the valley of the Ganges. It was carried by learned Hindus to Bagdad, it traveled thence to Spain, escaped to the early European universities or gained a footing among the Italian merchants, reached England, and, finally, was brought over to this country by English colonists with English textbooks.