B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

212
Erwin Tomash Library
Brooks, Edward Brooks, Edward
Binding: original printed cloth boards
Pagination: pp. viii, 231–429, [1]
Collation: A–H 12 I 8
Size: 184x114 mm
This is Part III of Brooks’ advanced treatment of
arithmetic. This volume contains sections on business
problems such as percentages on bonds and investments,
ratios, arithmetic and geometric series, and menstruation
of surfaces and volumes. An appendix contains problems
on the metric system and insurance of various kinds.
Illustrations available:
Title page
B 268
Brooks, Edward (1831–1912)
The normal written arithmetic, by analysis and
synthesis. Designed for common schools, normal
schools, high schools, academies, etc.
Year: 1869
Place: Philadelphia
Publisher: Sower, Potts & Co.
Edition: 2nd (?)
Language: English
Binding: original printed cloth boards
Pagination: pp. vi, 9–337, [1]
Collation: 1–28 6
Size: 184x108 mm
This is a more advanced work than Brooks’ mental
arithmetic series. It treats the same elementary
numeration and arithmetic operations, but then deals
with decimal fractions and many of the same types of
advanced problems that were repeated in the union
publications.
Illustrations available:
Title page
B 269
Brooks, Edward (1831–1912)
The philosophy of arithmetic as developed from the
three fundamental processes of synthesis, analysis, and
comparison containing also a history of arithmetic.
Year: 1880
Place: Lancaster, PA
Publisher: Normal Publishing
Edition: 2nd
Language: English
Binding: original cloth boards
Pagination: pp. x, 11–570, 2
Collation: 1–35 8 36 6
Size: 222x144 mm
This is by far the most significant of Brooks’ publications,
although perhaps the least popular. It begins with a
history and comments on the origins and old names for
arithmetical processes, particularly the old Latin and
Italian names for the various methods used for division.
The chapter on Arithmetical Language includes the
erroneous speculations on the shapes of the digits arising
from the number of straight lines or angles contained
in the character but also includes, without illustration,
the more plausible theory of their origin from Sanskrit
characters. A section of different number bases discusses
the origin of the binary system, which, he indicates, was
communicated to Leibniz by Bouvet, a Jesuit missionary
in China. An extensive description of the base 12 scale
is complete with a proposed set of names and characters
for the digits as well as an addition and multiplication
table. The last half of the book tends to treat the same
topics as were in his union series of arithmetic books, but
from a much more academic standpoint. In his discussion
of decimal fractions, he points out that they were first
used by Simon Stevin and that the first English work to
use them with regularity was by Richard Witt in 1613,
although Stevin’s Disme was translated into English by
Richard Norton in 1608.
Despite the inclusion of several speculations, this
work has much to recommend it as a study of early
arithmetic.
Illustrations available:
Title page
Origin of numeral shapes
Description of the creation of decimal fractions
B 269