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TERAKOYA

This is a name given to a type of school run during the Tokugawa Period (1603 -1868) by samurai to teach the local children the three R’s. In this case that meant reading yomi, writing kaki and arithmetic soroban. The school was usually a designated place, and likely as not a temple would lend rooms, hence the name “children of the temple room” terakoya. A famous mathematics textbook was written for the Terakoya by Yoshida Mitsuyoshi called Jingōki. In it he introduces the concept of compounded multiplication, nezumizan. Can you answer one of the problems he poses? If a pair of mice had twelve offspring every month, half of which were female, and every month those offspring also bore young, after twelve months how many mice would there be?

The Terakoya this author runs is a group of non-Oriental calligraphers who attempt to further the art through group study and exhibitions and thereby promote in themselves and others a cultural awareness and deeper understanding of Japan.

An illustration of a nineteenth century terakoya

Answer: 27,682,574,402 Mice