Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/148



Chicago, July 1, 1911. My Dear Boy:—One of the easiest things to measure, because definite in terms and limited in quantity, is money. The things which money may represent are hard to measure because often intangible and indefinite. The money account may or may not reflect efficiency in performance. Have we not been grasping at the shadow of money at the expense of the substance, effect? Consider, if you please, the working of a bank, perhaps the corporate institution in whose efficiency the public has the greatest confidence. In a small country bank one man does all the work. Later he requires a clerk or a bookkeeper. As the bank grows there are self-suggesting divisions of labor along such well defined positions as teller, paying or receiving, cashier, vice-president, president, etc. In the first place, the same man handles the money and its written representations, the accounts. When we reach