Can you find out how to use an abacus?
One of the oldest manipulatives you're probably familiar with is the abacus, the ancient counting device in which beads strung on wires are used to represent single digits and groups of numbers.
They didn't have calculators in Victorian schools, but they did have the abacus!
In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dolokhov in a traveling cloak and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles of paper money.
The name of " abacus " is also given, in logic, to an instrument, often called the " logical machine," analogous to the mathematical abacus.