Amer. Univ

HCM

1-13-39 37686

INTRODUCTION.

ARITHMETIC is a science of such general utility, that a perfect knowledge of it is indispensably necessary to the farmer and mechanic, as well as to the merchant; its importance in education is great, as its application is useful; it is the foundation of the useful arts, the introduction to philosophical investigation; by it the merchant regulates his commerce, and by it the artisan or philosopher ascertains the certainty of theoretical researches.

To acquire expedition and exactitude in accounts are of the greatest importance; they are at once both elegant and useful accomplishments: a system of arithmetic should therefore exhibit the plainest methods of calculation, together with every useful abbreviation that numbers are capable of; the rules should be perspicuous, plain and intelligent ; and every part, tending to explanation, expressed in the simplest language possible.

Aukwardness and embarrassment are the general attendants of youth on quitting the school for the counting house. This arises solely from the difference between the theory of the school and the practice of this office. Care should be taken to remove this, by reducing the mode of instruction, in Schools, to a similarity of the transaction of business.

Books, with new names, have been multiplied; but the compilers have candidly confessed, that the mercantile parts have been copied chiefly from foreign authors: this by no means answers for American commerce; it only tends to lead the student into error; and the accountant must form a new theory for himself, before he can regulate his own, or his employer's concerns.

The commerce of America is now co-extensive with the globe: a knowledge of all foreign monies, weights and measures are therefore necessary, to form the complete American merchant. No pains or labour have been spared incollecting the best information on this head; and every part of mercantile arithmetic is explain. ed in such a manner, as to convey perfect ideas of the transaction of business, together with furnishing means for the ap

*

plication of speculative genius, well aware that youth should be exercised in the abstruse and scientific, as well as in the practical parts of arithmetic by this means they acquire a mode of reasoning which gives them a promptitude and exactness in calculation, which cannot be practised by any who have not properly studied the power of numbers.

The part on Exchange, is only an extract from a system designed as a Commercial Dictionary (now preparing for the press) in which the money, weights, measures, productions, manufactures, commerce, laws of trade, trading and banking companies of foreign nations, are considered with respect to the commerce of the U. States. The other parts of arithmetic are treated of in an extensive manner; the prolix methods hitherto used are superseded by such useful and plain abbreviations, particularly in interest and proportion, as will render it of the utmost utility in the school and the counting house.

In a land like America, where Commerce explores her ample rivers to their sources; where there is not a farmer but is more or less concerned in trade; where, at a word, the nation, in its most remote parts, is commercial: to such a people, whose interests and advantages connect them in mutual dependence, and reciprocal intercourse, a genuine system of mercantile arithmetic should be acceptable.

Though the Editor has taken all possible pains to preserve the work free from error; yet he would remind the reader of a truth, that no man is infallible in accounts; he hopes, therefore, that those which have imperceptibly crept in, will be excused by the impartial reader.

Relying on the merits of the work, he does not court the protection of individual recommendation, but offers it to the consideration of the candid-CERTAIN OF SUCCESS, if merit marks its pages; or, on the contrary, DESERVED NEGLECT, though partial interest might patronise it.