Curriculum for Abbaco masters was also universal, in that lessons were directed towards solving commercial problems. All instructors, however, were contractually bound to their agreement which usually meant that they could supplement their salary with tuition fees or other rates. Some abbaco teachers tutored privately in homes.

For example, institutions and appointed educators were set up in a number of ways, either through commune patronage or independent masters' personal funds. Italian abacus school systems differed more in their establishment than in their curriculum during the Middle Ages. Aspiring abbaco masters themselves need have studied only elementary, or secondary abbaco in order to teach others. Sailors, for example, who wished to climb the social ladder had to present literacy and arithmetic skills on their résumé. Secondly, reading, writing, and some elementary math as job requirements for general occupations meant that literacy levels rose with the number of ordinary students attending institutions or being tutored at home. Morality also played a role in determining the school attendance of commoners. Sons could now be trained by the best and brightest teachers to take over their family business and the fortunate poor had more access to a variety of vocations. Being convinced of its uses, abacus schools were therefore created and dominated by wealthy merchants, with some exceptions. Commercialists were first introduced to this new system through Leonardo Fibonacci, who came from a business family and had studied Arabic math. The number of Roman characters a merchant needed to memorize to carry out financial transactions as opposed to Hindu-numerals made the switch practical. Significance Ībacus schools were significant for a couple of reasons:įirstly, because mathematics was associated with many professions, including trade, there was an increasing need to do away with the old Roman numeral system which produced too many errors. The words abacus or abaco refers to calculations, especially the subject of direct calculations, and does not imply the use of an abacus. Unless they were selected for teaching occupations that were salaried, most masters taught students who could pay as this was their main source of income. These were done in many ways: communes could appeal to patrons to support the institution and find masters religious institutions could finance and oversee the curriculum independent masters could teach pupils. Italian merchants and traders quickly adopted the structure as a means of producing accountants, clerks, and so on, and subsequently abacus schools for students were established. In Fibonacci's viewpoint, this system, originating in India around 400 BCE, and later adopted by the Arabs, was simpler and more practical than using the existing Roman numeric tradition. These schools sprang up after the publication of Fibonacci's Book of the Abacus and his introduction of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. Abacus school is a term applied to any Italian school or tutorial after the 13th century, whose commerce-directed curriculum placed special emphasis on mathematics, such as algebra, among other subjects.

Abacus class