Scholfield's Commercial College
1882 engraving
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| Type | Private co-educational Business college |
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| Active | 1846–? |
| Founder | Albert G. Scholfield |
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Academic staff
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12 |
| Students | 650 |
| Location | Providence, Rhode Island, USA |
| Campus | Urban |
Scholfield's Commercial College was a business college in Providence, Rhode Island during the second half of the 19th century. It is no longer in operation.
In 1846, Albert Gallatin Scholfield (1807–1901) moved from Connecticut to Providence. He was a proponent of the double-entry bookkeeping system, but found that most merchants in town used the single-entry system. Sensing an opportunity, in June 1846 he opened Scholfield's Commercial College in downtown Providence. It was the first business school in the city. Eventually the double-entry method became the dominant accounting system in town.
By 1867, the school boasted twelve faculty and an average daily attendance of 650 students.
Bookkeeping was the main course of study at Scholfield's. The school promoted itself as teaching a superior and original method, which they called "Scholfield's Manuscript System of Book-Keeping." This method dispensed with textbooks, and was simultaneously more thorough and faster to learn than other accounting methods. The school offered "special attention" to bookkeeping for the Jewellery industry, which was an important industry in Providence at the time. Further, the school boasted that Scholfield's System would "render the perpetration of fraud or embezzlement by workmen and employees nearly impossible."
A catalog from 1867 lists courses including surveying; civil engineering; navigation; and penmanship. Also offered was a course on "Common English Studies", which included arithmetic, grammar, geography and other studies. Students could study a basic level of Latin, Greek, French, and German.
Women studying bookkeeping were allowed to study with the men in the Bookkeeping Department, while other women could enroll in the Ladies Department, which offered instruction in penmanship, Belles-lettres, drawing, and French.
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