AN ENGINEER OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5505, 18 November 1878, Page 3

AN ENGINEER OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

At a ripe old age, wealthy and full of professional and scientific honors, died lately George Parker Bidder, one of the last surviving members of the phalanx of great workers who founded the Institution of Civil Engineers, and fought the battle of tho broad and narrow gauge. Among them few were more learned and none more popular than Mr, Bidder, who to the last retained tho extraordinary powers which in his youth made him famous as the “ calculating boy,” and who said to a friend within a few weeks of his death, “It is not easy, to calculate logarithms mentally up to ten places ; but I think I could do a thousand a day now, if it wore worth my while.” Of this wonderful method of mental calculation, Mi*, idder made no secret at all. “The base of tho entire system is the faculty of multiplication and mental registration, and the only limit is the power of registration.” Like many men of rare gifts, Mr. Bidder was apt to overrate the powers of average humanity. As Mr. Lowe thinks that “no youth, not a congenital idiot, requires a master to teach him tho first four books of Euclid,” so did Mr. Bidder affiim that “mental multiplication of three figures by three figures might be learnt as easily as any other branch of arithmetic by persona of ordinary aptitude for figures.” It is easy enough within certain limits. Our readers will understand us at once when we tell them that mental multiplication is like a l gebra. One begihs at the left instead of the right hand, thus carrying forward a sum in simple addition. To begin with two figures, let us multiply mentally 29 by 23. We takes the big figures first : 20 times 20 is equal to 400; 9 times 20 to ISO, giving us 580; 3 times 20 to GO, giving 610 ; 3 times 9 to 27, giving C67—the result. This describes tho operation accurately, but it must not be supposed that Mr. Bidder required more than an instant to ausweuar greater sums than this, the thoroughly trained mind appearing to dash at its conclusion at once by what is loosely called “instinct,” but is really cerebration so rapid as to be almost un conscious. In qualifying the multiplication of 12 places of figures by 12 figures, the “distressing part of the effort was not iu computation, but in registration—the necessity of keeping ’ 24 figures before the mind, as well as the cumbrous result of the sum as it advanced. According to Mr, Bidder’s theory, numbers should be studied very early in life, and studied at first without the medium of symbols. His own self-training was certainly a remarkable instance of an intimate acquaintance with numbers* before knowing figures, just as children learn to speak before they attempt to spell. At the time when tho safety of England lay in her wooden walls, and English fo’k roared themselves hoarse with the singing of patriotic songs, little George Bidder—who ouce ran away to sea, but was captured on tho road by a friendly carrier —was learning the rudiments of numbers from bis brother, who taught him to count up to 100. The son of a stonemason iu Morion Hampstead, a village on the edge of picturesque Dartmoor, tho child, at the time he “ learned to count,” did not know one written or printed figure from another, and without knowing the meaning of tho word “ multiply,” taught himself with a bag of shot a sorb of natural multiplication table up to 10 times 10, beyond which he never went. Ho arranged the shot in little squares, arftl on making a square of 8 shot on e~-ch side, acquired the conviction that 8 times 8 made C 4 as a matter of fact, and not of theory. Having ‘advanced thus far, little George made the acquaintance of tho village blacksmith, a kind old man, who allowed him to run about bis workshop), and listen to the strange legends . and quaint stories of Dartmoor retailed by village gossips round the forge. In his own words, “ As my strength increased, I was raised to the dignity of being permitted to blow the bellows for him ; and on winter evenings I was allowed to perch myself on his forge-hearth, listening to his stories. On ono of these occasions somebody by chance mentioned a sum—whether it was 9 times 9, or what it was, I do not now recollect; but whatever it was I gave the answer conectly. This occasioned some little astonishment ; they then asked me other questions, which I answered with equal facility. They then went on to ask me up to 2 places of figures.” The fame of the “ calculating boy ” spread around Morton Hampstead ; and encouragement coming in the shape of pence and praise, he practised incessantly, until from 2 places of figures he advanced to 4,5, and 6 places, and on one occasion to 12 places. This was, it must be recollected, done by a boy of thirteen or fourteen years of ago, who had only acquired a very elementary education. This was compensated by a regular course of study afc Edinburgh University, and M". Bidder was in mature life a man of versatile acquirement. In tho great parliamentary fights, in which the Stephensons were engaged continuously during tho years in which railways were being established in this country, Mr. Bidder earned a reputation as “ tho best witness who ever entered a com-mittce-roora ;” and wonderful stories are told of tho way in which he posed hostile counsel, using the roughest readiest repartee, and pouring out long strings of figures apparently without effort, and twiddling a bit of whipcord the while. Mr. Bidder had of late years led a retired life, now at his estate, Ravensbury Park, Micham—which was purchased by his eldest son, the eminent Queen's Counsel (a gentleman almost as celebrated as a crosa-cxaminer in parliamentary contests as his father used to be as a a witness), a few months since—and now at Dartmouth, where he died, and where, until the last year or two, when he relinquished it, yachting was his favorite amusement.— World.