Excerpt from Bryant and Stratton's Counting House Book-Keeping: Containing a Complete Exposition of the Science of Accounts, in the Application to the Various Departments of Business; Including Complete Sets of Books in Wholesale and Retail Merchandising, Farming, Settlement of Estates, Forwarding, Commission, Banking The first two books of this series were intended mainly to teach the theory of Accounts; and while great care was taken that the transactions should be such as usually occur in the departments of business represented, they were selected more with a view to establish the student in the grand thadamental principles OI the science, than to exhibit the peculiar forms of entry variously employed in business. That this was the proper course we are fully confident not only from our own experience in this special department of instruction, but from the cit repeated assurances of competent teachers and educationists in all parts of the country. In the Common School edition we aimed to give the plainest instruction, accompanied by the most simple illustrations, avoiding as far as possible any fine-spun theories, or elaborate discussions upon points not likely to be understood and appreciated by the class of minds to which the work was addressed In the higher edition we deemed it our privilege to enter upon the general discussion with more freedom of expression, and less regard to the undefined prejudices against metaphysical reasoning which marks the indolent, no less than the timid mind. The general theories there assumed, and more or less elaborately enforced, were, in some essential particulars, original and novel, and were put forth with a good degree of timidity, not on account of any fears as to their truthfulness or consistency, but as to the prudence of venturing upon the untried sea of authorship against a tide of Opposing precedents, which although they may have been disturbed by collision with the innovations of recent authors were surely not destroyed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.