NEW LIFE IN OLD SUBJECTS 165 



A list compiled by a small company of teachers included 

 the following subjects: long, square, and cubic measures (with 

 constant practice in mensuration), liquid and dry measures, and 

 weights ; the measurement of time by clock and sundial ; the 

 use of the thermometer and barometer ; percentage, averages ; 

 tabulating by curves ; calculation of the amount of material 

 needed for given areas, such as fertilizers, seeds, and bulbs, 

 to be distributed at different intervals in a specified area ; 

 drawing to a scale ; the understanding of geometric forms 

 and facts. In addition there may be included the intricacies 

 of business arithmetic, such as the handling of money ; keep- 

 ing a cash account ; bookkeeping ; bills, receipts, and checks ; 

 interest and commission ; the reading of market quotations 

 as a basis for figuring and for fixing prices. A person could 

 probably go through life very well if only so much arithmetic 

 as this were thoroughly learned and " lived." 



More valuable even than facility and practice in arithmetic 

 may be counted the development of the business sense and 

 a timely initiation into honorable business methods. The 

 prudent buyer and the honest seller are the stuff out of which 

 good citizens are made. Nowhere may integrity be shown 

 more conspicuously than in packing goods skillfully and label- 

 ing them truthfully ; in just this work there will be shown 

 the advantage of earning a reputation for square dealing. We 

 may remember in this connection that the Father of our 

 Country, as a young man, had the reputation of growing the 

 best tobacco in Virginia, and that barrels of flour marked 

 G. W. were suffered to enter foreign ports without inspection. 



Business, furthermore, must often be done through cor- 

 respondence. There are various types of the conventional 

 business letter. Every scholar, before he leaves school, is 

 supposedly equipped with a formula with which to meet the 

 emergencies in letter writing that are likely to arise. Some 



