In 1733 I sent one of my journeymen to Charleston, South Carolina,
where a printer was wanting. I furnish'd him with a press and letters,
on an agreement of partnership, by which I was to receive one-third
of the profits of the business, paying one-third of the expense.
He was a man of learning, and honest but ignorant in matters
of account; and, tho' he sometimes made me remittances, I could get
no account from him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership
while he lived. On his decease, the business was continued by
his widow, who, being born and bred in Holland, where, as I have been
inform'd, the knowledge of accounts makes a part of female education,
she not only sent me as clear a state as she could find of the
transactions past, but continued to account with the greatest
regularity and exactness every quarter afterwards, and managed
the business with such success, that she not only brought up reputably
a family of children, but, at the expiration of the term, was able
to purchase of me the printing-house, and establish her son in it.
I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recommending that branch
of education for our young females, as likely to be of more use
to them and their children, in case of widowhood, than either music
or dancing, by preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men,
and enabling them to continue, perhaps, a profitable mercantile house,
with establish'd correspondence, till a son is grown up fit to undertake
and go on with it, to the lasting advantage and enriching of the family.
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