Mechanical Arithmetic - Or the History of the Counting Machine #272002

This lecture by the well-known inventor and manufacturer of the famous calculating machine known to all American bookkeepers and office men as the Comptometer, will be appreciated by all business men and students of Business who realize the wonderful strides made in the last quarter of a century in the mechanical aids to efficiency in the accounting departments of commercial life.<br><br>Mr. D. E. Felt stands high on the roll of successful American inventors, and, unlike so many of them, he possesses a well-developed business instinct that has enabled him to reap the due reward of his inventive genius. His standing as an inventor is recognized in Europe as well as in the United States, and during the visits to the European museums to which he refers in his lecture he was signally honored by being permitted to make close examination and tests of the historic calculating machines preserved in those institutions; so that he speaks with unusual authority on this interesting subject of the development of "Mechanical Arithmetic" from the earliest times of which records exist.<br><br>Mr. Felt tells in his lecture his own story of the dawn and origin of his great idea, and how he proceeded to carry it into effect; and this part of his lecture, brief as it is, indicates the magnitude of his undertaking, while leaving to the imagination of the reader the years of effort that were required to give to the world of commerce and finance the splendid mechanical calculator with which his name will ever be associated in the history of American invention and American business.