Accounts are as old as the brick books of Assyria. They have been found necessary to business transactions for ages. One of the reasons that housekeeping does not receive its proper recognition as a business and a profession is that it does not bear the stamp of either in the form of accurate accounts and statistics. Perhaps these are lacking because so many women are driven to tears or fury by accounts. It is odd that they are, too, for they keep golf and tennis scores, and devote themselves to whist, and are madly fascinated with jig-saw puzzles, and all these things are a good deal like accounts.

A favourite excuse for not keeping accounts is this: "I have just so much, and I can't spend what I haven't, so what's the use?" This ignores two things. The first is, that spending a little more than one's income, and thus gradually running up a debt, is an extremely easy thing to do. The second is, that people who do not plan their expenditures, deprive themselves of the chance to choose what their expenditures shall be made for. If you plan to have strawberries and cream on the first Monday in February, and bread and tea on the next Saturday, and you like that, then there is nothing more to say—except to hope for improvement in the next generation. If, however, in the exuberance of appetite or hospitality you have strawberries and cream on the first Monday in February, and are awfully surprised to find you can only afford bread and tea on Saturday—then you need to realize that you have deprived yourself of the freedom of choice, whether right or wrong, and that you had better keep a few accounts. The moment a family have one penny more than they need to buy the food which will keep them alive, there comes to be an element of choice in the spending of that penny. When the penny grows to an amount not easily calculated mentally, that freedom of choice is only obtainable by accepting the bondage of some sort of accounts. It is like the bondage of the truth, it makes us free.

There are many methods and variations of methods of keeping accounts. Mr. Morrison's woman with thirty shillings a week undoubtedly kept her accounts in her head, but she kept them. Many women keep accounts with a collection of small boxes or envelopes, each marked with the name of the commodity for which the money within is to be used. They find it easier to calculate with the actual money than with figures. It is well enough if they cannot do better, but it is primitive. I suppose that some six or seven thousand years ago, it was the latest thing in account keeping. No woman wants to be as far behind the style as that.

Accounts kept in figures have several obvious advantages. The symbol of five thousand dollars—$5,000—takes less room than that amount in money, and is no temptation to a thief. Another advantage is, that these symbols of money do not have to be paid out, but remain in a book, and furnish a record of just what has been bought and what money remains. They also make it clear to the owner of the money whether she has had what she most needed or not. That is one of the reasons accounts are so disagreeable; they often say, "You made a fool of yourself that time."

There are two sides in accounts, which are usually represented by opposite pages in a book. The right-hand page is the Credit side; the left hand page is the Debit side. On the right hand, or Credit, page are written the sums of money we have or acquire. Credit is related to the word creed. The reason for this relationship is, that a credit page represents how much we may be believed in financially; and to what amount people believed in us who paid us for work; and to what amount people believed in us who gave us gifts in money. On the left-hand, or Debit, page are written the sums of money we have paid out. The word debit is related to due and duty and devoir. Therefore, on this page go the amounts which have been due to others for the things which we have had, and which it has been our duty to pay because we have had these things. If we are honourable people, we will do our devoir in this matter.

At the end of a day, or a week, or a month, as seems best, the account is balanced. This word balanced is a metaphor. By its means the credit and the debit pages are changed into the pans of a pair of scales, and the account is balanced when they hang even. That is, when the items on the debit page add up to the same amount that the items on the credit page add up to, the account balances. But suppose the pages do not add up to the same amount—they rarely do, and they rarely should—What then? Then the metaphor of the balance suggests what to do. If one scalepan is lighter than the other, put a weight into it. If the debit side is lighter, that is, if it is less than the credit side, add on the amount which will make it even with the credit side, and write beside that amount, "Balance." In that case, there is a little money yet unspent, and when the next two pages of the accounts are begun this money yet unspent is put down at the head of the credit page like this:

If, on the contrary, the credit side is less than the debit side, add the balance there. This means that something has been bought which has not been paid for, and the meaning of another word related to debit becomes intrusive—debt. Debt is sometimes a temporary necessity—like oxygen pumped into lungs which can no longer pump for themselves; sometimes it is a calamity, sometimes it is a disgrace; and it is always dangerous.

Two pages of an account such as a girl might keep of her personal expenses, when balanced at the end of a week, look like this:—

The person to whom this account belongs has a balance on hand of $11.15 to put at the head of the next credit page. She is evidently an exemplary person for she has spent just about a fourth of her money in a fourth of the month.

One would think that simple household accounts might be kept like this personal cash-account. They could, except that it is desirable, almost necessary, that household accounts should be divided into departments. The departments will be those which have been decided upon in the plan of expenditure, such as food, clothes, fuel, savings, etc. There are several ways in which accounts can be kept in departments. Two or three of the simplest are suggested here. The rule for selecting a method is, use the one which confuses you least.

One method is, to begin in different parts of an account-book, accounts for each department like the simple cash-account above. It is convenient to have an indexed book, or else to paste slips on the pages where each account begins, which will stick out beyond the leaves and indicate by a word or an initial what department will be found there. The book should be one made for accounts, for then it will be ruled correctly. In each place where a department begins, write the name of the department at the head of opposite pages. On the credit page put down the amount allotted to this department for a week or month. This amount is copied from the plan of expenditure, which should be written down in the beginning or end of the book. On the debit page write the names of the items for which the money is spent and the dates. It is safer to balance house-accounts once a week. This prevents the use of more than the week's allowance, or if it has been necessary to use more, this serves as a warning to spend less than the allowance the next week. Below is a brief, two-weeks' account for the Clothes Department.

If it should happen that one department has to help another department, put the amount down on the credit page as: From X—Department—$10.00; just as the birthday present is put down in the personal account.

Here is another method, which is easy to understand, but tends to become clumsy if the details are many. For this, one should have a book with an unusually large page, and wider than it is high. Rule it like this form below. It saves confusion if the vertical rulings are done in red ink.

At the end of the week, the amount at the foot of each of these columns should be compared with the weekly amount for that department allowed in the plan of expenditure. If the week's total is more than the allowance, the amount it has exceeded should be put down in red ink at the head of the column for the next week. This will serve as a reminder that when that column is added up, it should be possible to add in the red number without exceeding the week's allowance for that department.

This method has the disadvantage that it does not record the items for which the money was spent. It is practicable, however, especially for a housekeeper who only manages the part of the income devoted to the food supply. Often, in this case, items can be obtained, if desired, from the little books of the butcher or the grocer in which purchases are charged for a week or a month.

This method does not show the credit side of the accounts. The previous method has a credit side, but it is theoretical. That is, the amounts on the credit pages were taken from the plan, they are not a record of actual checks or amounts of money in which the income was received. This defect in these methods must be remedied.

It can be done by devoting a page of the account book to the dates on which, and the amounts in which, the actual credits come in. They will be salary, wages, interest on investments, gifts, etc.; or the sum of money from the business which supports the family, which at stated times is deposited in a bank or given into the hands of the housekeeper for the living expenses. It is necessary to see that these things come in regularly; if they do the housekeeping plan may safely remain unchanged. If they decrease, a way must quickly be found to lessen the expenses; if they increase, one must decide slowly what is the wisest thing to do with the surplus.

If this way of recording actual credits does not seem convenient, a general account can be kept to supplement the detailed accounts. It will be well to have a small account book especially for this purpose. Two of its pages will look like the example below. The items on the debit page are gathered from detailed accounts such as have been described. Completed for a month, it should be balanced as any account is balanced.

Many people keep no accounts except in their checkbooks. That is, they write down carefully therein the date and source of every check deposited; and on the stub of each check drawn they write the purpose for which the money is to be used. This method is much better than no account keeping, but it is hardly detailed enough for a house account in which there are many items too small to be paid by check. After every three or four checks there is apt to be one marked "Incidentals," or "General Expenses." Into these indefinite checks often go the trip the family meant to take, the table linen they meant to buy, the savings they meant to put away, and at the end of a year it is impossible to say what they had instead.

Unless purchases are always paid for in cash, charge-accounts will have to have a place in the house account book. Some people have passbooks kept by the baker and the butcher and the grocer, and pay these accounts weekly. Others have charge-accounts with all their tradespeople and pay their bills monthly. If one has a charge-account with a firm, purchases made from them should invariably be charged. Paying for one purchase, and charging the next makes a tangle which neither the purchaser nor the shopkeeper can hope to prevent.

When purchases are charged, it is well to open a little account with the firm in the house account book. Write the name of the firm at the head of two opposite pages. On the debit side write the purchases, their dates and prices. On the credit side, write the dates and amounts of any payments made to the firm, because on those amounts is based the firm's belief in their customer. Such accounts may often take the place of the separate accounts kept for the departments of expenditure. The butcher's account will be the meat department; the coal and wood dealer's account will be the fuel department; etc.

When purchases are charged it is easier to buy more than one can pay for, than it is when they are paid for in cash. This is the cause of the objection which some people have to "charging."

It is very needful to have a fixed time every day for attending to the housekeeping accounts. The best time is immediately after the orders for the day have been given; or immediately after the housekeeper returns from market. It is well to have a little scratch-pad hung up in the kitchen, and another on a desk in the living room, and another upstairs, on which expenditures made at irregular times can be jotted down. The used slips can be torn off each day, and the items put down in the book at the regular time for the accounts.

Accounts balanced once a week are a little trouble once a week; those kept by the month are a large trouble once a month. Accounts balanced weekly are less apt to have mistakes in them; and they are a more frequent warning against living beyond one's means.

To a young housekeeper wishing to look into the matter of account keeping, I would recommend an interesting little book by Professor Charles Waldo Haskins, called "How to Keep Household Accounts." It is agreeable as well as useful. I wish, also, to say, in this connection, that the methods of keeping household accounts suggested in this book are neither professional nor authoritative; they are merely simple ways in which accounts may be correctly kept.

Not long ago, I made bold to ask an interesting and successful business man if he kept detailed accounts. He took out of an inside pocket a worn, narrow-paged diary. In it, under each date, was recorded every cent he spent—even to cigars and organ grinders. He showed it as if he did not quite like to, and yet as if he were determined to stand up for it—somewhat as a man acknowledges an unpopular conviction. He said, "It seems awfully close—no, I mean it seems awfully careful, but I want to know."

You may guess what it was he wanted to know.