for he could not pay for it.  Accordingly, many excellent men of business are quite ready to become members of boards of directors, and to attend to the business of companies, a good deal for the employment’s sake.  To have an interesting occupation which brings dignity and power with it pleases them very much.  As the aggregation of commerce in great cities grows, the number of such men augments.  A council of grave, careful, and experienced men can, without difficulty, be collected for a great bank in London, such as never could have been collected before, and such as cannot now be collected elsewhere.

There are facilities, too, for engaging a good banker to be a manager such as there never were before in the world.  The number of such persons is much on the increase.  Any careful person who is experienced in figures, and has real sound sense, may easily make himself a good banker.  The modes in which money can be safely lent by a banker are not many, and a clear-headed, quiet, industrious person may soon learn all that is necessary about them.  Our intricate law of real property is an impediment in country banking, for it requires some special study even to comprehend the elements of a law which is full of technical words, and which can only be explained by narrating its history.  But the banking of great cities is little concerned with loans on landed property.  And all the rest of the knowledge requisite for a banker can easily be obtained by anyone who has the sort of mind which takes to it.  No doubt there is a vast routine of work to be learned, and the manager of a large bank must have a great facility in transacting business rapidly.  But a great number of persons are now bred from their earliest manhood in the very midst of that routine; they learn it as they would learn a language, and come to be no more able to unlearn it than they could unlearn a language.  And the able ones among them acquire an almost magical rapidity in effecting the business connected with that routine.  A very good manager and very good board of directors can, without unreasonable difficulty, be provided for a bank at present in London.

It will be asked, what more can be required?  I reply, a great deal.  All which the best board of directors can really accomplish, is to form a good decision on the points which the manager presents to them, and perhaps on a few others which one or two zealous members of their body may select for discussion.  A meeting of fifteen or eighteen persons is wholly unequal to the transaction of more business than this; it will be fortunate, and it must be well guided, if it should be found to be equal to so much.  The discussion even of simple practical points by such a number of persons is a somewhat tedious affair.  Many of them will wish to speak on every decision of moment, and some of themsome of the best of them perhapswill only speak with difficulty and slowly.  Very generally, several points will be started at once, unless the discussion is strictly watched by a rigid chairman; and even on a single point the arguments will often raise grave questions which cannot be answered, and suggest many more issues than can be advantageously decided by the meeting.  The time required by many persons for discussing many questions, would alone prevent an assembly of many persons from overlooking a large and complicated business.