Summary Report on the Teaching of Mathematics in Japan

In fact, the tradesman can calculate mentally just as well as, or perhaps even better than, his customer; only he will not. If he makes use of the soroban in the simplest possible kind of addition or subtraction, that is only an illustration of the irresistible force of habit, and we can only blame him for his being strictly consistent. Are we not apt to make slips and to be tripped up in matters too small to rouse our earnest attention? Machines, too simple to get out of order, are they not more trustworthy than the average human brain, crowded nowadays with the perplexities of modern civilization? The world is becoming more and more busy and supreme efforts should be made to economize our mental work as much as possible.