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 
