money is simple; to use it is complex, and calls for welladjusted rules, and the wisdom that looks before and after.

I will venture upon two or three suggestions in this direction.

I. I would urge upon every child of humanity, who takes in and gives out money, the habit of keeping a cash account; a suggestion that requires no Daniel, you say. Perhaps so, but if it were heeded and followed there would be a great deal more practical righteousness flowing up and down the streets in city and country than is now to be seen. It is a custom of business, but it should be

universal.

I am aware that

there is a large class of sen

sible persons who say:

"I

receive so much; I strive to spend it wisely and to save what I can; why the bother of accounts?" Such persons miss one of the most important lessons in life. The habit itself is a good discipline,-in memory, order, accuracy, and general business methods. But more than all it teaches one the art of spending money. Representing as it does the greater part of what we do, and constituting one of our main relations to society, we do not know the significance of our conduct nor how we are related to the world until we

know how we spend our money. To receive so much and spend it for what we happen to want or need-making no farther note of it, is like guessing at the time of day. We insist on the accuracy of our watches to the minute, but how our income is divided up is guesswork. It would help a man amazingly to a correct estimate of himself if he had an accurate and definite knowledge of how, when, and for what he spends his income. How else can a well-meaning person properly adjust this great factor to his life? It is only by the book-keepers' art that he can know how much has gone into the several departments

of expenditure; and a review of the accounts would show him whether he has been wise or foolish, prudent or careless, true to himself and family and society, or unequal, or ungenerous, or over-indulgent to any. We keep accurate and full account of earning; why not of spending? The failure of farmers in this matter is the tragedy of their lives, and largely explains their growing poverty and the large increase of mortgages. Keeping no account with each field and crop and herd, of money received from or paid out on each, he never knows where he is as to loss or gain, nor where each may come in. His chief aim is

often sooner learned by the money-lender than by himself. He loses in some department what he gains in others, and he is unable to eliminate the losing factor for lack of that knowledge which accounts only could give. The habit of keeping accounts with his farm would be of more service to the American farmer than any tariff that could be devised, or any subsidy that a paternal government might grant.

The scantier one's income, the more one requires this habit. The less there is to spend, the more need of care. One thus learns at the proper point where to retrench, and