The Hindu-Arabic Numerals
"Excerpt from the book..."Arabic, and so extensive is their use in Europe and the Americas, that itis difficult for us to realize that their general acceptance in thetransactions of commerce is a matter of only the last four centuries, andthat they are unknown to a very large part of the human race to-day. Itseems strange that such a labor-saving device should have struggled fornearly a thousand years after its system of place value was perfectedbefore it replaced such crude notations as the one
...that the Roman conquerormade substantially universal in Europe. Such, however, is the case, andthere is probably no one who has not at least some slight passing interestin the story of this struggle. To the mathematician and the student ofcivilization the interest is generally a deep one; to the teacher of theelements of knowledge the interest may be less marked, but nevertheless itis real; and even the business man who makes daily use of the curioussymbols by which we express the numbers of commerce, cannot fail to havesome appreciation for the story of the rise and progress of these tools ofhis trade.
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