Abacus and Slate

I know that it seems like summer just started but really school will be here before you know it and soon it will be time to start thinking about all those supplies that you need to get: pens, pencils, paper, folders, backpacks, lunch bags, and so on and so on. Have you ever thought about how your kids are going to work on their studies at home? Or what if they are homeschooled? Obviously they are going to use the paper, calculators, and other supplies that you bought them. But what about back when paper and pencils were not as available? How could you practice what you were learning at school or at home? The daughters of Thelma Webber, Bruce Alene and Alta Faye, were homeschooled until Hobbs established its school system. While they were homeschooled, they were lucky enough that in 1926 they had their own slate board to work with, which is now in the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame in the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection. This slate was not just a slate board that hung on the wall; it was a free standing slate board with an abacus above the board allowing for multiple uses and studies.

Blackboards, or slate boards, have been in use for a long time. According to www.pbs.org, the first blackboard used in a school was in 1809 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When slate boards came out they were made of actual slate. Slate boards were generally small and used to practice writing in school but they could be larger when needed. They came as blank slates, lined slates, slates divided into squares, slates with maps, and two or three-leafed slate books according to “Slatesite” (http://www.llechicymru.info/index.english.htm). Slates were economical and could be used over and over. Commonly in schools teachers and students would use white chalk which could be erased with a felt eraser or piece of cloth. The resulting chalk dust “was the bane of all teachers” as www.pbs.org states.

The abacus is a tool that has been around even longer than the slate board. Abaci (the plural of an abacus), or counting frames, have been discovered in early civilizations such as Mesopotamia, the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, and the Chinese. It seems that almost every early civilization had their own form of an abacus which is fascinating. An abacus can be used for simple mathematics such as addition and subtraction or it can be used for more complex mathematics such as multiplication, division, and extracting square roots and cubic roots according to “The Abacus” page at the Ryerson University webpage (www.ee.ryerson.ca). The abacus has changed since its ancient counterparts but both are counting aids.

Both the slate board, blackboard, and abacus are still being used today but they are slowly going to the wayside because of white boards with dry erase markers and calculators. Still, it is good to remember where we started before or modern conveniences. For a sneak-peak into the past stop by the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame where you can see this slate board as well as a home-made eraser cleaner in the South Gallery.