HOME BOOKKEEPING.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1909, Page 11

HOME BOOKKEEPING.

"What good aro algebra or geometry compared with practical work which most people ought to make- use of as coon as they leave school '!" ask 3 a woman in a letter to Good Housekeeping. She refers particularly to the bookkeeping which evory family ahoukl conduct. "Have a regular system of household accounts taught in the schools," sho urges. Well (comments -"the editor), why not? Household bookkeeping is taught in connection with home economics in the schools and departments which aro devoted to this branch of education. But it should be taught in tho higher grammar grades as a part of the course in mathematics. It need not displace anything of value ; it is not a fad nor a "frill." Home bookkeeping would accord perfectly with the larger phases of that new movement which aims to train for thoir life-work tho great majority — yes, the ninety-nine per cent. — of publicschool children who pasa no farther than the grammar grades. Is there possible objection to the carrying out of this suggestion? If bo, we should liko to hear it.

A well-known lady writer recommends swimming as the beßt exercise for girls. ' Girls who swim feel that there is no such way of loosening the joints. It makes them supple and graceful, while ' it gives an added self-confidence which ] nothing else will impart in the same degree. Outside of the enjoyment of being in the water and the exhilaration of the sport, the swimmer feels a sense of rejuvenation that no other exercise ; seems to give. Swimming sometimes reduces the figure, and again it fills out the hollows where such exist. The girl who would like to get rid of any superfluous breadth of hip should try swimming. A few weeks of constant exercise jai this kind will make the fab seem to melt visibly, and it will not return as soon as she abandons the water sport for more conventional pleasures in town. It may be that the flesh is hardened by the exercise and does not soon soften up, but, whatever the explanation may be, it is a positive fact that swimming is one of the quickest and most satisfactory reducers known. Not many young girls need to worry about superfluous flesh, but when fashions are so eccentric and insist on unusual slimness there are times, says the writer, when it is an advantage to know of some simple and wholesome method of reducing. Mr. Sidney Low, iv the Nineteenth Century, declares that the matrimonial experiences of authors are often uniortunate because husband and wife have too much of one another's company. This opinion as to the dangers of constant companionship appears to have been shared by at least one distinguished authoress, for a French writer tells us that "when M. do Gonlis married he said to hi 1 ! wife. 'Help me not to bo ridiculous,' and she, with perfect tact and good bouso, replied, 'It depends on yourself; wet gyist aayer meet in public/ i'.