Reading Faithfully Volume 2

Author : Joseph French Johnson
Publisher : BEYOND BOOKS HUB
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book Business and The Man written by Joseph French Johnson and published by BEYOND BOOKS HUB. This book was released on 2023-11-03 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Business” is a pioneer work in its field. Its authors, who are successful teachers, have aimed in these twenty-four volumes to apply scientific methods in the discussion of the various phases of business and at the same time to be so practical and clear, and so copious with illustrations, that their words shall be readily understood by every man of ordinary intelligence. They should appeal to the mature man already engaged in business, for they will explain many phenomena which now puzzle him; and to the young man looking forward to a business career, for they will give him a helpful grasp of underlying principles and a most useful knowledge of modern forms, methods and practices. The volumes of “Modern Business”, it should be clearly understood, are not designed to cover Thorold and in detail every point that ought to be included in a study of present-day business; they constitute but one feature of the Alexander Hamilton Institute's comprehensive course of training for business. The function of the Texts is to present clearly the basic principles of each subject discussed. Applications of the problems, concrete questions, technical details are largely left to be treated in other features of the course. The twenty-four text volumes of the Institute present in most readable form the fundamental principles in accordance with which successful business is and must be conducted. It is intended that the subscriber who reads these volumes and the other literature of the Institute shall have the substance of a liberal education for business, that he shall be better able to understand and solve any and all kinds of business problems, and that in his own business he shall rely more and more upon reason and the proved experience of others, and less and less upon prejudice, weak imitation and outworn traditions. It is only during the last few decades that business has been recognized as a science worthy the attention of specialists. Many doctrinaire political economies have been written, but these in the main have sought to explain, not the actual phenomena of the business world, but the phenomena of an imaginary, hypothetical world in which all men were supposed to be actuated solely by economic or material considerations. Such classic writers as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill performed a great service for humanity, for they called attention to certain truths which must always prevail so long as human nature is unchanged; but their service lies largely in the field of pure economics rather than that of practical or applied economics. Our great economists did not seek to explain the actual phenomena of everyday life. Their interests lay, not in the science of business, but in social or national economy. As a result, their works, although possessing great scientific value, seem far removed from the affairs which interest the practical business man. The volumes of “Modern Business”, on the other hand, are directly concerned with the problems which the business man is called upon daily to solve. They treat specifically of the science and art of business. The problems involved in the more general science of so-called political or national economy they discuss only in so far as light is thus thrown upon actual transactions. These twenty-four volumes from a scientific point of view all belong in the same field, each discussing a separate set of business phenomena. Could their contents be condensed into a single volume, it would be a complete syllabus or outline of the science of business in all its phases and practical applications. It must not be supposed, however, that the writers ignore the teachings of the older economists. On the contrary, those teachings, in so far as they are applicable today, are here given emphasis and fresh illustration. Within the last few years many of the leading universities of the United States, including the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Harvard, University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan and the University of Illinois, have established schools of commerce in which they aim to give young men a thoron training in the principles of business. Their work is based upon a belief that thru a study of commercial methods and economic forces a young man may get valuable mental discipline and at the same time acquire the technical knowledge and the habits that make for efficiency and success in business. These schools of commerce have been the outgrowth of a popular demand for instruction of the sort they give, and the large number of students they have enrolled is evidence that the people of the United States realize the importance of intellectual training as a preparation for business careers. It has long been acknowledged that a man who chooses the career of a physician, of a civil or mechanical engineer, of an architect, or of a dentist, must prepare himself for his work by devoting several years to study in the schools and universities. Now it is known that the young man who chooses a career as a banker, or certified public accountant, or stockbroker, or bond dealer, or fire or life insurance agent, or journalist, or real estate dealer, or manufacturer, ought in the beginning to learn by study all that is possible from the experience of others. In other words, many of our business careers have become professional in their character, requiring a training of the intellect quite as much as the older professions. It is for this purpose that our schools of commerce have been established and are now enrolling large numbers of students. But not all men can attend these schools of commerce. Many a young man is earning a living in his native town at a distance from a university and without the means to go to it. Furthermore, there are thousands of older men —including many of high ability in the United States and other countries who realize the deficiencies of their early training and regret that they have no opportunity to get the education which they could not get or did not get in their youth. Most ambitious men of this kind have families to support and are tied down to a particular location. It is for men of this sort that are distant from universities, or whose daily employment prevents their attendance upon university schools, that these volumes have been prepared. The authors, all of them experienced university teachers, have aimed, above all things, at comprehensiveness and clearness, in order that no reader of intelligence might be puzzled. They have aimed also to develop each subject in such logical fashion and to illustrate all points so clearly that every reader who conscientiously follows directions and does the work outlined for him shall not fail to arrive at an intelligent understanding of each of the subjects. Every author was urged to have clearly and constantly in mind the following facts: (1) That the subscribers to the Alexander Hamilton Institute Modern Business Course and Service are active, intelligent, ambitious business men. (2) That the single aim or purpose of the Modern Business Course and Service is to help men to become more productive and to increase their incomes, either by showing them how to improve the quality of their present work or by fitting them for more difficult and more profitable undertakings. In Volume 1 on “Business and the Man”, I have sought to make clear the fundamental nature of business and to show how human qualities and characteristics affect the success of men in the pursuit of wealth. It is intended as a study of human nature based on long experience and related especially to the business field. For valuable suggestions in the preparation of this volume I am greatly indebted to my colleagues, Professor Enoch Burton Gowin, and Dr. Rudolph M. Binder of the New York University School of Commerce, and to one of my former students, Clinton Collver, recently director of the School of Commerce of the Young Men's Christian Association in Baltimore. It is not necessary to take the space here to describe the contents of all the Texts. The reader will find. that they treat of all forms of business activity and that these might all be conveniently classed under four heads as follows: Production, Marketing, Finance, Accounting. The scope and aim of each volume the subscriber will find succinctly stated in each author's preface. The order of arrangement may strike the subscriber as arbitrary, but it is not. It was adopted after a careful analysis of the curricula of university schools of commerce and is believed to be the best possible sequence in which the various subjects can be taken up and mastered. Some of the volumes, to be sure, could be read with profit by a man who had not read all or any of the preceding ones; for example, the Texts on “Advertising Principles” and “Business Correspondence” In the cases of other volumes, it is presupposed that the subscriber already has mastered the contents of certain other volumes. It is well therefore for the subscriber in his reading to follow the arrangement prescribed by the Institute. It will be noted that no Text is devoted to the subject of Commercial Law, but it must not be imagined that this important subject has been ignored. Instead of segregating the principles of business law and making what to the layman might be a dull and uninteresting book, it was deemed best to put into each volume such a discussion of the law as was germane to the subject matter. The law with respect to the collection of debts and bankruptcy, for example, will be found in the volume on “Credit and the Credit Man”, and the law relative to partnership, corporations, etc., in the volumes on “Organization and Control” and “Corporation Finance” Volume 24, “Business and the Government”, is, of course, very much concerned with the laws regulating and controlling business operations. The legal phases of the various subjects have been discussed under the general supervision of my colleague, Professor Charles W. Gerstenberg of the New York University School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance. The relations of the United States to Canada are growing closer every day. That the American business man should know something of Canadian practice where it differs from our own is highly important. We have, therefore, secured for some of the volumes the collaboration of Canadian authors, who have read the galley proofs of the Texts, and inserted such information as seemed necessary to give a correct view of Canadian experience or practice. The review questions at the end of each chapter are intended to be an aid to the subscriber. He is not expected to send written answers to the Institute. It would be impossible to give due credit to all the persons who have united in the effort to make these twenty-four volumes worthy of their purpose. The authors have put their best thought into the books, and have never failed to give patient heed to the editor's suggestions. I feel personally under great obligation to my old friend and colleague, Dr. Roland P. Falkner, upon whose shoulders has fallen a large part of the heavy task of editing and revision.