The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Colburn, Warren

COLBURN, Warren, an American mathematician, born at Dedham, Mass., March 1, 1793, died at Lowell, Sept. 15, 1833. He was the eldest son of a large family. His parents were poor, and during his childhood made frequent removals to different manufacturing villages, where Warren as well as some of the other children found employment in the factories. He early manifested a remarkable taste for mathematics, and having acquired the trade of a machinist, he entered Harvard college in 1816. He graduated in 1820, and soon afterward opened a select school in Boston. In the autumn of 1821 the first edition of his “First Lessons in Mental Arithmetic” was issued. While in college the necessity of such a work had been forced upon his mind, and its plan digested. He was accustomed to say that “the pupils who were under his tuition made his arithmetic for him;” that the questions they asked, and the necessary answers and explanations which he gave in reply, were embodied in that book. No other elementary work on arithmetic ever had such a sale. It has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and into several of those of India. After teaching nearly three years, he accepted the situation of superintendent of the Boston manufacturing company at Waltham, in April, 1823; and in August, 1824, he was appointed superintendent of the Merrimack manufacturing company at Lowell. Here he projected a system of lectures of an instructive character, presenting commerce and useful subjects in such a way as to gain attention. In the autumn of 1825 he commenced a course of lectures on the natural history of animals. This he followed in subsequent years with lectures on light, the eye, the seasons, electricity, hydraulics, astronomy, &c. His “Sequel” had been published just before he left Waltham. In 1828 he published his “Algebra.” In May, 1827, he was elected a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences. He was also for a number of years one of the examining committee on mathematics in Harvard college, and some time superintendent of schools at Lowell.