cker and cheaper way will obviously do well so
to obtain it; and the supplying of such practical knowledge, and the
training which may largely take the place of experience in actual
business, is the proper function of the true business college.

Our purpose in this writing, however, was not so much to enlarge upon
the utility of business colleges, properly so called, as to describe the
practical working of a representative institution, choosing for the
purpose Packard's Business College in this city.

This school was established in 1858, under the name of Bryant, Stratton
& Packard's Mercantile College, by Mr. S. S. Packard, the present
proprietor. It formed the New York link in the chain of institutions
known as the Bryant & Stratton chain of business colleges, which
ultimately embraced fifty co working schools in the principal cities of
the United States and Canada. In 1867 Mr. Packard purchased the Bryant &
Stratton interest in the New York College, and changed its name to
Packard's Business College, retaining the good will and all the co
operative advantages of the Bryant & Stratton association. The original
purpose of the college, as its name implies, was the education of young
men for business pursuits. The experience of over twenty years has led
to many improvements in the working of the school, and to a considerable
enlargement of its scope and constituency, which now includes adults as
well as boys, especial opportunities being offered to mature men who
want particular instruction in arithmetic, bookkeeping, penmanship,
correspondence, and the like.

[Illustration: LECTURE AND RECITATION ROOM.]

The teachers employed in the college are chosen for their practical as
well as their theoretical knowledge of business affairs, and every
effort is made to secure timeliness and accuracy in their teachings.
Constant intercourse is kept up with the departments at Washington as to
facts and changes in financial matters, and also with prominent business
houses in this and other cities. Among the recent letters received in
correspondence of this sort are letters from the Secretary of State of
every State in the Union with regard to rates of interest and usury
laws, and letters from each of our city banks as to methods of reckoning
time on paper, the basis of interest calculations, the practices
concerning deposit balances, and other business matters subject to
change. The aim of the proprietor is to keep the school abrea