The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-07-07
Arithmetic Problems in Verse.

Arithmetic Problems In Verse.
Jacob Willetts' Arithmetic wa the
product of a Quaker teacher in Dutch
ess County, who also made a geog-
raphy and other works. The arith-
metic had great favor and was con-
sidered easier than Daboli's. Nearly
all the old arithmetics put their prob
lens usually in terms of pounds, tshill-
ings and pence, down to about 1850.
In Willetts' Arithmetic no n will
forget who has studied it this exam
pie:
When first the marriage knot was tied
Between my wife and me,
My age was to that of my bride
As three times three to three;
But now when ten and half ten years
We man and wife have been,
Her age to mine exactly bears ,
As eight is to sixteen.
Now tell, T pray, from what I've said,
What were our ages when we wed.
Ans.-Thy age when married must have
been
Just forty-fve, thy wife's fifteen.
This was not exactly a case of De-
cember and May, but it was pretty
nearly one of September and the lat
ter month, bringing golden rod and,
lilacs together. Willetts helped
Goold Brown on his grammar and
was the head of a noted school to the
working end of his life. One of his
assistant teachers, Augustus R. Nc
Cord, a County Superintendent Of
Schools in Duchess County when
that office, existed, revised Willetts'
Arithmetic in the middle of the last
century, putting it also in boards in
stead of leather. Willetts' school
books and many others bore this al
lucrative imprint: Printed and
Published by Paraclete Potter,
Poughkepsie, N. Y" This Potter
was a brother of the older bishops Of
that name.
Noah Webster's Son.
Not every one knows that there
was a sequel to Webster's Spelling
Book, made by his son, w. G. Web
ster, and a motto in it, under the
portrait of Noah Webster, reads thus:
"Who taught millions to read, but
none to sin" Nothing a better
give the spirit in which the old school
books were written, for they were
nearly all h~ortatory and didactic,
even when they dealt with figures
ohsaAu Thnra mn on nfrNaYofiNn
and also a sequel to the English
Reader, but their school use was lin
tied.
There were in vogue, as geogra-
phies, Morse's, Smiths and Olney's
among others. But very early in the
nineteenth century there was a huge
geography by an elder Morse (Jede-
diah Morse, I %believe), which con-
tanned remarkably frank matter, and
some relating to the social customs
of certain nations that modern taste
would distinctly frown upon. 1t is
a curious fact In reference to the
old geography maps-those made in
the early part of the last century
that they populated by definite town
marks and described with mount
aims, lakes and rivers the most I'M
known parts of the interior of At
RIGA. If our ex-President in his big
game hunt should take one Of these
along as a geographical guide he
would discover, to use "Josh Bill
ings'" locution, ga good many things
that amt So"
Some Of the Good Old "Pieces."
I should have said before this that
there were competitors to the Eng
lish Reader. The Columbian Orator,
by Caleb Bingham, vas one; the Ma
tional Preceptor Il think it was
called) was another, and Porter's
Rhetorical Reader came a little later.
In all these, as with Murray's book,
the pieces were selected with an eye
to defamation. Some of these were
"On Linden When the Sun Was
Low" "The Burial of Sir John
Moore" Marco Bozzaris," "The Old
Oaken Bucket" "Webster's Reply to
Hayne," with passages from other