And thus the fabric of civilization grew, each addition to the structure being made to cover a want which experience developed. As time went on, some of the people accumulated the fruits of labor, money, in greater quantity than was requisite for their own needs, but which less thrifty or less fortunate brethren could so profitably employ in their own affairs as to be able to pay for its use a fair proportion of what it could be made to earn. Thereupon provision was made for a common place of safety for this surplus money, a place where experts in the handling and putting to use of money could employ their talents, first, safeguarding it and, then, loaning it to others. And the law was made to say that all money put into this common place should be so guarded as to be ready for its owner when he demanded it; that its owner should receive all it earned less the necessary expense of holding it, and that the amount it earned should be only such as those who borrowed it could fairly make it earn. This was invention No. 5: _The Bank_. As the years followed one another, "the bank" became one of the most important of the people's institutions and grew in number and variety. There came to be many different forms of banks. For instance, _national banks_, which, under the control and regulation of the Government, became depositories for the circulation of the Government's money and were privileged to lend money to individuals or corporations with or without collateral. Funds confided by the people to these national banks had always to be ready for their owners. A second form was the _savings-bank_, which grew out of the requirements of small depositors and was governed by the laws of its community. The savings-bank used and safeguarded money confided to it in small sums, and these amounts could be withdrawn only by their owners in person, after an agreed term of notice. The savings-bank was allowed to lend only on real estate or certain other securities, the character of which was rigidly regulated by the law. In consequence, it could use its funds for long-time loans and mortgages, so it earned larger rates of interest than the national banks. The _trust company_ was a third variation, coming somewhere between the national and the savings-bank, and was regulated, as was the latter, by the laws of the community in which it existed. The trust company, too, received deposits from the people, but was allowed a broader latitude in employing them. It was also authorized to engage in certain other business--for example, to act as manager for a deceased person's estate and even to buy and sell securities. Because of the extra-hazardous business in which it engaged and from which the other two institutions were legally debarred, the trust company earned and paid larger rates of interest to its depositors, and the men who handled its funds were allowed to take for their own remuneration profits in excess of those derived by the custodians of national and