This book is not the result of any preconceived theories on methods of education in banking. Neither does it make any pretense of being complete as to the subjects covered nor exhaustive in its treatment of them. It is based on fifteen years of practical experience, beginning with a small country bank and extending through eleven years with a large city bank. To this first-hand knowledge of the educational needs of the beginner in banking has been added four years spent in the teaching of banking subjects to young men in the various chapters of the American Institute of Banking. The subject matter presented herewith consists in the main of a series of lectures delivered to a class of younger men in New York Chapter. This book is intended for the young man just entering the bank from school and too new in the business to be able to undertake the regular Institute study course. No other text book so far as the writer knows is designed to meet this particular need. The method of treatment is to explain the underlying principles not only of bank accounting, but of the everyday transactions that are common to all forms of banking. The danger of the small bank is that it tends to narrow the horizon of the young banker, while in the large bank the beginner too often regards his institution as something inhuman that moves along as entirely independent of him or his associates as if it were a part of the solar system. Another difficulty confronting the beginner is that when he does feel the need of instruction he is apt to fall a victim to the advice of well - meaning but untrained "instructors," who attempt to teach him banking by explaining the use of accounting forms.

The two most prevalent misconceptions that tend to restrict banking progress are first, that the bank clerk or officer needs no other technical education than the experience gained at his own desk, and as a result of the first idea, that banking is a matter of accounting systems only. It is the hope of the author that this little volume in spite of its manifest limitations may be the means of assisting the boy through that very trying period, his first year in a banking house.

O. H. W.

"A successful banker is composed of about one-fifth accountant, two-fifths lawyer, three-fifths political economist, and four-fifths gentleman and scholar - total ten-fifths - double size. Any smaller person may be a pawnbroker or a promoter, but not a banker." - Geo. E. Allen.