TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.

One, somewhat "posted up” touching Men and things, would, at first view naturally enough presume it but an easy and pleasing task, to teach another a thing, which that person's own Professional duties-the duties he owes to his Creditors-the duties he owes to his family as well as his own personal interest and reputation require him to know. Acting under such mistaken notions, and from a well matured conviction, that none but a thorough Accountant himself skilled in the practical duties and personally familiarized with the entire routine of the Counting-House, could successfully train young gentlemen for the performance of their duties as practical Book-Keepers, the Principal of this Institution opened Jones' Commercial School of St. Louis, early in 1841, UPON A NEW AND STRICTLY ORIGINAL PLAN OF IMPARTING INSTRUCTION. Although that plan differs, in every essential particular, from those of its predecessors and cotemporaries, who had attempted, or, were endeavoring through the use of Bennetts, Colts, Fosters, and other works on Book-Keeping, to qualify young gentlemen as practical Accountants, and invariably failed in their efforts, this school for a long time seemed destined to share the same fate, but of late years things seem to have changed, and the notions of business men have changed with them. Then it was universally maintained that young gentlemen should go to the Counting-House in order to be educated for business pursuits. Now it is pretty generally held to be essencially necessary, that young gentlemen be educated for the Counting-House just as much so as for any other profession or pursuit. For thirteen consecutive years we have labored in this City for the accomplishment of a single object-viz: The formation and permanent establishmant of a reliable reputation as a Public Accountant, and Successful Educator. That has been our highest aim and this our only Profession. How far we have succeeded in making an impression upon the business community, we leave our “Living Epistles" to say: more than two hundred of whom in this City are recognised as practical Book-Keepers and receiving as ample remuneration for their services as those who have been qualified under any other circumstances. Our Rooms are open to the public during business hours and we have at all times endeavored to cultivate the friendly acquaintance of Practical Accountants, knowing full well that they only are fully prepared to appreciate what is of utility, and reprobate that which is useless in a business education, and we say without fear of contradiction that no experienced business man, or Practical Accountant, can visit our Rooms and become acquainted with our peculiar mode of imparting instruction and

detect the slight difference between our operations and those of the Counting-House in which he was educated, and notwithstanding all this, there are some good men in this community, gentlemen of reputed intelligence and high moral character, who are deservedly popular in their profession as Practical Accountants, that think they are doing their young friends a kindly office by indiscriminately branding Commercial Schools and Colleges" HUMBUGS"!! For such we have never held unkind feelings. Indeed, entertaining the opinions they do and occupying the positions they hold, we cannot see how they could believe and do otherwise. The old fashioned Schools with which they were acquainted ❝ in the days of their youth" were all of this stamp, (t. e. Humbugs!) and they never visit new institutions of this kind, and therefore their "ways are equal," and their views are but an inevitable result growing out of an impartial comparison of what they themselves have acquired under the tuition of experienced Practical Accountants, with what inexperienced, incompetent, theoretical teachers have attempted to do. Did we understand the plan and extent of instruction adopted in this Institution, no better than they do, it is more than probable that we should lend them a helping hand to exterminate the imaginary evil, and add our warning voice to the Young and Unsuspecting; but in this particular, we have an advantage over them: Hence their innocency and our accountability. There is a practical Book-Keeper whose name is H- at this time in charge of Books in one of our most respectable mercantile houses, at a salary of one thousand dollars per annum, who upon completing his course in Book-keeping under our instruction some years since, commenced and conducted the following conversation with the Principal of this Institution, in the presence of the whole School.

Mr. H- · (standing up at his Desk.) “Mr. Jones, why is it, that you have so many enemies among the practical Accountants and business men of this City ?"

J. J. "Mr. H you astonish me sir! It is true I am but a comparative stranger in the City, have made the acquaintance of but few practical accountants and business men, have formed rather a favorable opinion of those with whom I have become acquainted; had thought they were not very neighborly, but I was quite certain that when we became a little more intimate, we would be as friendly as David and Jonathan were. But please Mr. H explain yourself more fully on this subject ?”

Mr. H

"Do you remember my commencing a course of instruction with you some two or three years since, and my uncerimonious discontinuance ?"

Mr. H- - "I was at that time acting in a subordinate situation in one of the city Insurance Offices, and one day I accidentally named to Mr.

-> our secretary, that I was attending your School in order to learn Book-Keeping. Oh! Fudge; said he all a “ Humbug” sir, a “ Humbug.” You cannot learn any thing there, it is only throwing away time and money without the possibility of any practical good to be derived; and

such was my confidence in the gentleman's judgment and his kind intentions toward me as a friend, that I dropped off attending your School, and made engagements with S. Bro. & Co. at a nominal salary and left for Illinois. Some weeks since I received a letter from Mr. P. containing a proposition for me to take charge of their Books-on condition, that I would take a preparatory course of instruction in your Institution, which I have accordingly done, to my entire satisfaction, and to-morrow I take charge of A. & P.'s Books with full confidence in my ability to keep them correctly and to their entire satisfaction; and had I known as much of your Institution at the time I spoke to Mr.

as I do now, I could have had double the salary and two years of valuable experience, and but for Mr. P. I should have remained ignorant of the true nature and design of your Inrtitution, as I presume thousands in this City are at this time."

Mr. H- took charge of the Books referred to, at the time specified; and from that day until now he has been recognized as a competent BookKeeper, and pursued no other profession, although he had never written in Books kept by Double-Entry previously to his entering this Institution.

This is but a fair specimen of what we could present by the hundred, during our first four or five years experience in this City, of young gentlemen of good business habits, writing beautifully, ready and accurate in their calculations, and perfectly familiarised with business routine-who might this day command their Twelve Hundred dollars per annum. had they not become the unsuspecting Dupes of this class of "Old Fogies." And whom have these "Old Fogies" benefitted by their "Dog-in-the-Manger" policy? Have they benevolently stepped forward and supplied these young gentlemen and the business community with this lack of competent practical instruction? Not they! When experienced Practical Accountants adopt teaching as a profession, and organise an Institution with all the facili ties known in the actual performance of their duties in the Counting-House. Do these "ancient worthies" visit such Institutions and speak from what they have seen or known? Not they! Their argument is "we have attended Commercial Schools "DOWN EAST" and were Humbuged! They have not got any thing as good "OUT WEST," as they have "ON EAST"!! Therefore all Commercial Schools and Colleges are "Humbugs"!!! It is true that for a time they succeeded in diverting the attention of just such young gentlemen as were the best qualified to appreciate the merits or to condemn the policy of an Institution of this kind. But then we have gone to the carpenter shop, to the paint shop, to the printing office, and to the plough handle and selected our materials and produced a class of Book-Keepers of an entirely new and different stamp. Those old fashioned Accountants understand Book-Keeping, but "THEY DON'T KNOW ANY THING ELSE"!! This new class of Accountants, were business men in the enlarged sense of that term, before taking lessons in Book-Keeping and mercantile usages. Educated in the school of experience in which men as they are, and things as they should be, constitute the standard Text Book. Raised to business, accustomed to industrial pursuits, and not ashamed, or too proud to work. Thus

66

in keeping with the progress of this wonderful age, the economical merchant is accommodated with a Book-Keeper and a Practical Business Man in the same contract. Practical Accountants, Business Men, and gentlemen desirous of qualifying themselves for business pursuits are urgently, but respect. fully requested to visit our rooms during business hours, and examine our mode of imparting instruction, in contradistinction to that ordinarily adopted in Schools and Colleges, and become personally acquainted with the actual workings of this Institution, as such visits do not in the least interrupt the regular operations of the School.

Respectfully Yours,

JONATHAN JONES.

YOUNG LADIES' COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE,

South-East corner of Washington Av. and Third Street.

EPISTOLARY PENMANSHIP.

BY S. D. HAYDEN.

To write a plain, legible, chaste and uniform "Letter-Hand," is a desirable accomplishment in the education of every Lady. But how few acquire this invaluable art in our best English and Classical High Schools? This is owing to the fact that Teachers themselves have not given the subject the attention requisite to master a practical system, such as may be taught with success. Many write beautifully themselves, who utterly fail in an attempt to enable others to execute with similar ease and elegance; and it may be asked, why is it so? We unhesitatingly reply, their system are to them intuitive. Penmanship, as a mechanical art, is the result of a combined motion of the arm, the wrist, and the fingers. No one but an artist can be taught to write by imitation alone, while all may be taught a beautiful hand by a proper system of training.

DOUBLE-ENTRY BOOK-KEEPING.

BY JONATHAN JONES.

We are not unconscious of the fact that some, in this community, will attach "novelty" to the idea of imparting instruction to Ladies in the science of managing accounts; neither are we strangers to what it requires in the way of expenditure and persevering toil to revolutionize popular sentiment, where an entire business community have been long accustomed to look one way at the same subject; but experience has long since convinced us that it is but an easy task to teach a person a thing which it is his interest to know, or to enlist the co-operation of a class deservedly popular for their enlightened liberality and enlarged views of progressive improvements and practical reforms.

The only questions with us have been, Is it practicable, and of public utility? Can we accomplish the object with credit to ourselves and with profit

to others?

IS IT PRACTICABLE, AND OF PUBLIC UTILITY? From well digested and universally conceded premises, we anticipate but little difficulty in maintaining the affirmative against the possibility of successful contradiction. The leading design of education being to qualify its recipients for a practical performance of the duties of life, it only remains for us to show that many of the duties of life, devolving upon ladies, require a knowledge of accounts, and we shall have accomplished our object.

For us, even in this country, to see a lady, as a natural guardian, assume the administration of a large estate, creates no unusual surprise, though she may be totally ignorant touching the management of accounts, and unfamiliarized with a general business routine. Waiving the numerous embarrassments, always consequent upon a transition from the control of one kind of business to that of another, so different in its nature and requirements, what must be the result? Again, if the accumulation of that estate required years of persevering application to business, with tact, talent, and practical knowledge of acuounts, is it presumable that a lady, wholly destitute of a "business education," can successfully and profitably direct its affairs? Do not experience and observation too frequently prove that she and hers become an easy prey to "Interested Financiers," for the want of this very species of information? We only desire to direct public attention to a few of the leading principles which have actuated us in the commencement of an enterprise, though new in this country, none the less important, as experience has elsewhere proved. It is no unusual occurrence in Philadelphia, Liverpool, or Paris, to see a lady of the highest respectability in full charge of a set of books; and why should it not be the case in this city, where a number of ladies have distinguished themselves in the mercantile community, as equally successful as gentlemen, in commanding the trade and in fostering their means.

CAN WE ACCOMPLISH THE OBJECT WITH CREDIT TO OURSELVES AND PROFIT TO OTHERS? Although, during the past ten years, we have been often solicited by ladies for instruction in Book-Keeping, until the present we have invariably declined, owing mainly to two causes.

First. Our efforts to form a reputation as a successful teacher was an experiment in the estimation of the business community of questionable utility, owing altogether to the fact that numerous unqualified and inexperienced teachers had extorted large sums for pretending to do what they could not accomplish. It was almost universally declared, that no one could be qualified in a school for the practical performance of an ac

countant's duties.