20 The Farmer's Business Handbook 



producing profit, or what activities result in loss. 

 There is one consolation or, rather, one fact, — 

 most men are financially careless; this robs criti- 

 cism of its personal character. Too little has 

 yet been done in the schools toward giving thor- 

 ough instruction in accounts. True, an attempt 

 to teach "bookkeeping," with its manifold quirks, 

 may be made for one or two terms, but the sub- 

 ject is rarely mastered, is seldom real, and often 

 is not adapted to the age and conditions of the 

 pupil. Matter and method are likely to be rigid 

 and hard. If the pupils were set to keeping 

 accounts with the family receipts and expendi- 

 tures a working knowledge of accounts would 

 be gained, and the parents as well as the pupils 

 would be benefited. Often an attempt is made 

 to teach lads twelve to fifteen years of age all 

 the forms and intricacies of commercial book- 

 keeping, which can be fully mastered only after 

 years of practice in large commercial houses. In 

 all other studies we commence with the simple 

 and proceed slowly to the complex. In book- 

 keeping the lad is often drowned, suffocated in 

 complexities, and if, by chance, he is ever re- 

 suscitated, he has forgotten which is credit and 

 which is debit, or the meaning of bills payable 

 and bills receivable, and, if called on to give 

 a receipt, would word it as the man did in the 

 story, 



