J. J. RAHILL, C. P. A. Member, California Society of Public Accountants. Author of "Corporation Accounting and Corporation Law." FRANK BROOKER, C. P. A. Ex-New York State Examiner of Certified Public Accountants. Ex-President, American Association of Public Accountants. Author of "American Accountants' Manual." CLINTON E. WOODS, M. E. Specialist in Industrial Organization. Formerly Comptroller, Sears, Roebuck & Co. Author of "Organizing a Factory," and "Woods' Reports." CHARLES E. SPRAGUE, C. P. A. President of the Union Dime Savings Bank, New York. Author of "The Accountancy of Investment," "Extended Bond Tables," and "Problems and Studies in the Accountancy of Investment." CHARLES WALDO HASKINS, C. P. A., L. H. M. Author of "Business Education and Accountancy." JOHN J. CRAWFORD Author of "Bank Directors, Their Powers, Duties, and Liabilities." DR. F. A. CLEVELAND Of the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania. Author of "Funds and Their Uses." [Illustration: GENERAL SALES OFFICES, SWIFT & CO., CHICAGO, ILL. ] Foreword With the unprecedented increase in our commercial activities has come a demand for better business methods. Methods which were adequate for the business of a less active commercial era, have given way to systems and labor-saving ideas in keeping with the financial and industrial progress of the world. ¶ Out of this progress has risen a new literature—the literature of business. But with the rapid advancement in the science of business, its literature can scarcely be said to have kept pace, at least, not to the same extent as in other sciences and professions. Much excellent material dealing with special phases of business activity has been prepared, but this is so scattered that the student desiring to acquire a comprehensive business library has found himself confronted by serious difficulties. He has been obliged, to a great extent, to make his selections blindly, resulting in many duplications of material without securing needed information on important phases of the subject.