AN ELEMENTARY BOOK-KEEPING WITH BUSINESS FORMS EMBRACING SYSTEMATIC AND APPLIED TRAINING IN KEEPING AND POSTING SIMPLE ACCOUNTS, WRITING BUSINESS LETTERS, MAKING BILLS, AND HINTS ON THE SAVING AND USE OF WEALTH BY JUDSON WADE SHAW, A.M. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY BOSTON, U.S.A. D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 1899 627399 COPYRIGHT, 1892, AND 1897, TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CUSHING & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A. Printed by CARL H. HEINTZEMANN, Boston, U.S.A. PREFACE. THE strong approval of the plan and the successful use of the "Practice Book," with the urgent call for a much more extended list of examples accompanied with simple and full illustrations of the methods of keeping accounts and the use of common business papers, were incentives for the preparation of this book. From extensive observation and repeated tests it is clearly shown that pupils, when rightly trained, acquire a knowledge of these matters as thoroughly in school work as they do in actual business transactions. But it is thus acquired only by the constant writing and applied use of business papers, and the opening and closing of accounts. As this investigation showed that pupils, especially the younger class, acquire this knowledge more readily and intelligently by the use of short examples rather than long ones, nearly all the examples have been made very brief. From these examples, as well as from the suggestions in regard to the making out of bills, the writing and endorsing of notes, bank checks, and drafts, the writing of orders, telegrams, due bills, business letters, etc., interspersed through the book, teachers may select and use as time may permit. The ignorance of most citizens, as well as a large per cent. of the pupils in our schools, of the common business forms and of commercial law, should induce school officials and teachers to have these correctly and thoroughly taught. The method adopted in this book is in accord with that pursued in those schools where the author found the most efficient and satisfactory work done in this branch of study. This method of presenting the principles involved will, we trust, help to remedy the complaint of some that "the results secured in this branch are not commensurate with the time given to it." It is no more so in the study of book-keeping than in the study of arithmetic. Book-keeping, well taught, brings into use much of the most practical part of arithmetic. It is also an efficient way of learning to write, to spell, and to use numbers rapidly. It develops a ready and concise expression of thought, all of which have been kept in mind in the preparation of this book. Care has been taken to make both the language and examples, used to illustrate principles, so plain, that ordinary grammar school pupils may readily understand them. The advantage of this study is also shown in its developing the spirit of careful calculation and saving. Repeated investigation has shown that of the clerks who had been trained to the practice of keeping accounts, not only a much larger number kept an account of their receipts and payments, but a very much larger number saved of their earnings than did those who had not thus been trained. Hints on the acquisition and use of money are interspersed through the book. It is hoped that teachers will enlarge upon the suggestions given in this line. The author is under great obligation to F. L. Shaw, Principal of the Shaw Business Colleges in Portland and Augusta, Me., and to M. J. West, in charge of the Book-keeping department of the State Normal School, Farmington, Me., who have rendered valuable help and suggestions; also to F. E. C. Robbins, Superintendent of the Schools of the cities of Deering and Westbrook, and to Myron T. Pritchard, Master of Everett School, Boston, Mass. FALMOUTH, ME., Jan., 1897. JUDSON WADE SHAW. iii |