f bookkeeping, in its
general theories, and their application to ordinary transactions.

In the third department the student takes an advanced position, and is
expected, during the two or three months he will remain in this
department, to perfect himself in the more subtle questions involved in
accounts, as well as to shake off the crude belongings of schoolboy
work. He will be required to use his mind in everything he does--to
depend as much as possible upon himself. The work which he presents for
approval here must have the characteristics of business. His letters,
statements, and papers of all kinds are critically examined, and
approved only when giving evidence of conscientious work, as well as
coming up to strict business requirements. Before he leaves this
department he should be versed in all the theories of accounts, should
write an acceptable business hand; should be able to execute a faultless
letter so far as relates to form, spelling, and grammatical
construction, should have a fair knowledge of commercial law, and have
completed his arithmetical course.

The next step is to reduce the student's theoretical knowledge to
practice, in a department devoted to actual business operations. This
business or finishing department is shown at the upper left corner of
our front page illustration. The work in this department is as exacting
and as real as the work in the best business houses and banks. At the
extreme end of the room is a bank in complete operation, as perfect in
its functions as any bank in this city or elsewhere. The records made in
its books come from the real transactions of dealers who are engaged in
different lines of business at their desks and in the offices. The small
office adjoining the bank, on the right, is a post office, the only one
in the country, perhaps, where true civil service rules are strictly
observed. In connection with it is a transportation office. From fifty
to a hundred letters daily are received and delivered by the post
office, written by or to the students of this department.

The correspondence thus indicated goes on not only between the students
of this college, but between members of this and other similar
institutions in different parts of the country. A perfected system of
intercommunication has for years been in practice between co-ordinate
schools in New York, Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore,
and other cities, by which is carried on an elaborate s