“Set Them to the Cyphering Schoole”: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetical Education, circa 1540–1700

Abstract

During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English men and women replaced their existing oral and object-based arithmetical practices with literate practices based on Arabic numerals. While the adoption of Arabic numerals was incentivized by continental commercial developments, this article argues that England's increasing literacy rates and the development of vernacular arithmetic textbooks enabled changing arithmetical practices. By exploring the qualities of printed books, analyzing marginalia in arithmetic textbooks, and examining changing educational advertisements and curricula over time, we can demonstrate the importance of literacy and literature to early modern arithmetical education.

L’economia della conoscenza: innovazione, produttività e crescita economica nei secoli XIII-XVIII / The knowledge economy: innovation, productivity and economic growth, 13th to 18th century

“…John Dee, who edited an edition of The Ground of Artes, himself spent time on board these ships, instructing mariners in practical arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy (Patterson 1951, 209-10). The majority of surviving copies of English practical arithmetic manuals presents marginalia, showing that these texts were actually used to learn arithmetic, often passing down across generations of the same family and sometimes also reaching women (Otis 2017).…”

A Numerical Revolution: The Diffusion of Practical Mathematics and the Growth of Pre-modern European Economies

“…The diffusion of practical arithmetic to the northern Low Countries, and especially to Amsterdam, was triggered by the migration of Antwerp's Protestant citizens in the aftermath of the Dutch revolt, that included a number of rekenmeesters (Meskens, 2013, 52-55). Humphrey Baker's The welspring of sciences (1574) attests that, in the third quarter of the 16th century, practical arithmetic skills were in growing demand in London among mercantile classes, and that such demand had so far been satisfied mostly by masters coming from the continent (Otis, 2017). As the exchange of ideas and the movement of people were the key channels through which this useful knowledge spread, the European diffusion of practical arithmetic did not follow the maritime routes of international trade, but rather inland channels based on proximity, as can be observed from the maps reported in Figure 1.…”