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."
[Illustration: Photograph by Helen W. Cooke
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: