I have in my possession a book printed in 1816 called The Scholar's Arithmetic; or, Federal Accountant. Here are a few math problems (written verbatim):

·        How many minutes from the commencement of the war between America and England, April 19, 1775, to the settlement of a general peace, which took place, Jan. 20, 1783?
·        In $392.75 how many pounds, shillings, pence and farthings?
·        How do you change New England and Virginia currencies to Federal Money? New York currency? –and wherein consists the difference?
·        What will 51 pounds of tea cost at 3s6 per lb? (Answer: £8 18s6)
·        If 7 men can make 84 rods of wall in 6 days; in what time will 10 men make 150 rods?
·        What is the square root of 10342656? (Remember that there were no calculators or slide rules in 1816. The student was expected to calculate it and show his work.)
·        What is the cube root of 2? (Same conditions as above.)
·        If 12 acres 3 roods, produce 78 quarters 3 pecks, how much will 35 acres, 1 rood, 20 poles produce? (Answer: 216 qrs. 5 bush. 1.5 pecks.)
·        If 365 men consume 75 barrels of provisions in 9 months, how much will 500 men consume in the same time? (Answer: 102 54/73 barrels.)
·        Bought 9 Chests of tea, each weighing 3C. 2prs. 21 lb. At £4 9s. per cwt. What came they to?
·        I borrowed 185 quarters of corn when the price was 19s. how much must I pay to indemnify the lender when the price is 17s. 4d.?
·        When the rate is any other than 6 percent, first find the interest at 6 percent, then divide the interest so found by such parts as the interest at the rate required exceeds or falls short of the interest at 6 percent, and the quotient added to or subtracted from the interest at 6 percent, as the case may be, will give the interest at the rate required. What is the interest of $137.84 for 2 years and 6 months at 3 percent? (Answer: $17.23) What is the interest of $79.07 for 10 months at 8 percent?
·        A, B, and C trade together; A at first put in $450 for 3 months, then put in $200 more and continued the whole in trade 8 months longer, at the end of which he took out his whole stock; B put in $800 for 9 months, then took out $583.333 and continued the rest in trade 3 months; C put in $366.666 for ten months then put in $250 more, and continued the whole in trade 6 months longer. At the end of their partnership they had cleared $1000; what is each man's share of the gain?

Think about it. Can you calculate a square or cube root? Sure you know the square root of 36 is 6—that's easy. The cube root of 8 is 2 since 2x2x2=8. But what do you do if you have to come up with a value of the square root of 71,014? Or the cube root of 5,359? You probably don't have the slightest idea do you? But an 1816 math primer shows you how to do it. They had to calculate between competing currencies within the United States and had divisions of less than a cent called mills.

Accounting was far more precise and meticulous than today. If people today understood how to calculate interest the way the people of 1816 did, there would be no credit crisis because people would understand how unacceptably high credit card interest rates are—incredibly high. Too high for any sane person to pay if they understood what they were getting into. Unfortunately, today they obviously don't.