Back to the Present: Ruminations on an Old Arithmetic Text

Abstract

A student of mine, Andy Ohrman, received a thoughtful but unusual gift from his sister. It is an old arithmetic book she had stumbled on at a New England yard sale. Although the pages are brittle and browned by time, their contents are quite legible. Knowing that her brother is studying to be a mathematics teacher, she purchased it for him. The book's front page bears the title The Columbian Arithmetician and declared the author's ambitious mission to present a “New System of Theoretical and Practical Arithmetic Performed in Simple and Compound Numbers adopted to the Commerce of the United States and Designed for the Instruction of Youth.” Its author remains anonymous, identifying himself pointedly as “an American”; however, the printer is clearly designated as William Allen of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and the year of publication 1811. Andy knew of my interest in old mathematics books and lent it to me to read.