YOUNG GREEK BOYS AND OLD GREEK SCHOOLS. 817 



The ancient book was made of parcliment; sometimes attached 

 to a wooden roller, but more often a simple roll, whence our word 

 volume, the rolled or revolved thing. The title was a small tag 

 attached to the roller or to the parchment itself. The volumes were 

 kept in a round box which the pedagogue carried for the boy. This 

 arrangement of the rolls in round boxes is still preserved in the 

 Vatican Library at Rome. 



The schoolboy's arithmetic consisted of the science of abstract 

 numbers — regarded as especially difficult and seldom acquired by the 

 ordinary man — and the art of reckoning, common to the pursuits of 

 everyday life. The itthenians, v/ho had obtained a wide reputation 

 as bankers, must have acquired proficiency in the keeping of ac- 

 counts. To the science of abstract numbers is due much of the archi- 

 tectural excellence of the Greek temples and public buildings, whose 

 dimensions were based on some mathematical theory, and in at leaet 

 one instance — the celebrated Temple of the Olympian Zeus — multi- 

 ples of seven and five have been found to be the governing prin- 

 ciple. Thje boy was taught to add, subtract, multijily, and divide; 

 though the lack of our Arabic system of notation made the operation 

 much more difficult than now. Mother Nature, here as everywhere, 

 taught the first lesson. The pupil used his fingers in counting, and 

 " counting by fives " came to be the fixed expression for all count- 

 ing. The units were represented by the fingers, a bent or crooked 

 finger having a fractional significance. Our old-fashioned word 

 digits (fingers) is a telltale relic of this mode of reckoning. The time- 

 immemorial practice of counting by fives and multiples of five has 

 survived to this day, and forms the basis of all calculation, pure and 

 applied, and will maintain its sovereignty as long as mankind has 

 fingers and toes. 



The Greek boy made straight marks for numbers; at first five 

 lines ( I ! I 1 I ) meant five, and then two lines at an angle — the out- 

 line of the hand outstretched in counting that number (V); two of 

 these angles with their vertices together (X) meant ten. The higher 

 numbers, as the hundreds and thousands, were represented by the 

 initial letter of the word, as in the Roman system of to-day. The 

 abacus and pebbles were used as an aid in computations with large 

 numbers. The abacus, so called from its resemblance to the marble 

 slab at the top of the Doric pillar, was said to have been introduced 

 by Pythagoras, but was probably of Egyptian origin. There were 

 several forms of the abacus, but the kind most common in the Greek 

 schools was, in princij^le, exactly like the counting-frame " John 

 Chinaman " uses when he reckons up our laundry bill. There were 

 several straight furrows set with pebbles, a row for each of the orders 

 of units, tens, hundreds, and so on: at the left side of each furrow 



VOL. LIU.— 57 



