THE WORLD'S FIRST SUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 271, 15 November 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE WORLD'S FIRST SUM.

Many boys and girls'ilry to count up to a million. I wonder if you have ever tried. It gets rather wearisome after two or three hundred; and then, when a grown-up tells us we shall have to go on counting day and night for about 11 days, we probably decide to give it up. Though it is difficult to count a million, we do use millions, and it makes us wonder about these ones, noughts, sixes, and sevens that we use when we count and add and multiply.

Once upon a time, hundreds of centuries ago, no one could count at all, for there were no such things as numbers. Then one day a shepherd, looking at his flock thought that there seemed fewer sheep than usual. But how was he to tell? He couldn't count, or number them. So he told the boy to drive them through a gap into the sheep-fold, One at a time; and as each sheep' passed through, the shepherd cut a notch for each sheep. The next day, when the sheep were folded again, he could tell whether he had as many sheep as he had notches on his staff; if he had hot then he knew that one had strayed away, or had been eate'n by wolves. In this clever way, he kept account of his flock. ' ' This method of "counting" flocks and herds was used for hundreds of years; and you can imagine that a farmer who had a great many sheep would have a great many 'notches on bis stick; and you know how difficult it is to count a lot of ones, and not Mniss any. So after every twenty notches, the farmer would make a long cut, or score; and this word, score, which just meant a long scratch, passed into our language and was used for the number of 20. We also use it to-day in our games, as a tally or mark, when we say that "our side made a good score."