in due time you have sufficiently
familiarized yourself with our institutions, and are willing to teach us
something concerning those of your day, you will find an historical lectureship
in one of our colleges awaiting you.«
    »Very good! very good indeed,« I said, much relieved by so practical a
suggestion on a point which had begun to trouble me. »If your people are really
so much interested in the nineteenth century, there will indeed be an occupation
ready-made for me. I don't think there is anything else that I could possibly
earn my salt at, but I certainly may claim without conceit to have some special
qualifications for such a post as you describe.«
 

                                  Chapter XVII

I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith had
described them, and became even enthusiastic over the truly remarkable
illustration which is seen there of the prodigiously multiplied efficiency which
perfect organization can give to labor. It is like a gigantic mill, into the
hopper of which goods are being constantly poured by the train-load and
shipload, to issue at the other end in packages of pounds and ounces, yards and
inches, pints and gallons, corresponding to the infinitely complex personal
needs of half a million people. Dr. Leete, with the assistance of data furnished
by me as to the way goods were sold in my day, figured out some astounding
results in the way of the economies effected by the modern system.
    As we set out homeward, I said: »After what I have seen to-day, together
with what you have told me, and what I learned under Miss Leete's tutelage at
the sample store, I have a tolerably clear idea of your system of distribution,
and how it enables you to dispense with a circulating medium. But I should like
very much to know something more about your system of production. You have told
me in general how your industrial army is levied and organized, but who directs
its efforts? What supreme authority determines what shall be done in every
department, so that enough of everything is produced and yet no labor wasted? It
seems to me that this must be a wonderfully complex and difficult function,
requiring very unusual endowments.«
    »Does it indeed seem so to you?« responded Dr. Leete. »I assure you that it
is nothing of the kind, but on the other hand so simple, and depending on
principles so obvious and easily applied, that the functionaries at Washington
to whom it is trusted require to be nothing more than men of fair abilities to
discharge it to the entire satisfaction of the