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The Four-Corner Method was invented in the 1920s by [[Wang Yunwu]] (王雲五), the editor in chief at Commercial Press Ltd., China. It was based on experiments by [[Lin Yutang]] and others.{{Citation needed|date=April 2007}} Its original purpose was to aid telegraphers in looking up [[Chinese telegraph code]] (CST) numbers in use at that time from long lists of characters. This was mentioned by Wang Yunwu in an introductory pamphlet called "Sijiaohaoma Jianzifa" in 1926. Introductory essays for this pamphlet were written by [[Cai Yuanpei]] and [[Hu Shih]].
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The four digits used to encode each character are chosen according to the "shape" of the four corners of each character.{{clarify}} In order, these corners are upper left, upper right, lower left and lower right. The shapes can be memorized using a Chinese poem that Hu Shih composed, called ''Bihuahaoma Ge'', as a "memory key" to the system:
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