And to very many persons engaged in business for themselves, this is a time of great anxiety, for one can hardly tell exactly whether he is getting on favorably until his account books are posted and the balances are struck. If one’s capital is small and the result of the year’s business is a loss, that means a reduction of capital, and raises the question whether this can go on for some years without failure and bankruptcy. Many and many a business man looks with great anxiety to the month of December, and especially to the end of it, to learn whether he shall be able to go on in his business, however humble. And, alas! there are many whose books of account are so badly kept, and whose balances are so rarely struck, or who keep no account books at all, that they never know how they stand, but are always under the apprehension that any day they may fail to meet their obligations and so fail and become bankrupt. They were insolvent long before, but they did not know it; and they have gone on from bad to worse until they are ruined. Others, again, are afraid to look closely into their account books――afraid to have the balances struck, lest they should be convinced that their affairs are in a hopeless condition. Unhappy cowards they are, for if insolvent the sooner they know it the better, that they may make the best settlement they can with their creditors, if the business is worth following at all, and begin again, “turning over a new leaf.” I do not suppose that many of you boys have ever thought much on these subjects; for you are not in business as principals or as clerks, you have no merchandise or produce or money to handle, you have no account books for yourselves or for other people to keep, to post, to balance, and you may think you have no interest in these remarks; but I hope to be able to show you that these things are not matters of indifference to you. The year 1887, which closed last night, was just as much _your_ year as it was that of any man, even the busiest man of affairs. When it came, 365 days ago, it found you (most of you) at school here: it left all of you here. And the question naturally arises, what have you done with this time, all these days and nights? Every page in the account books of certain kinds of business represents a day of business, and either the figures on both the debit and the credit side are added up and carried forward, or the balance of the two sides of the page is struck and carried over leaf to the next page.