n aim thus becomes subsidiary to the characteristic
activities of the enterprise, it is in a sense a by-product. But the
money-making aim is there, although perhaps in the background. It is
furnishing the power under which the enterprise operates. More than
that, it is the gauge indicating the prosperity or lack of prosperity
of the enterprise, its progress, its fitting in with the needs of life.
In short, the money-making aim spurs on the business enterprise, just
as the weekly or monthly pay spurs on the humble worker; but in each
case the main attention is given, and necessarily given, to the work to
be performed.

Let us now consider some of the implications of this concentration on
rendering service. The directed effort of each man to the production of
the utility characteristic of his business, tends to result in his
learning to conduct that specific activity with a high degree of skill,
and with an increasingly valuable fund of experience. So highly
specialized does he become that it will be quite impossible for any one
hitherto a stranger in that sphere to conduct it as well. Therefore in
an age of coordinated effort the more a man has of accumulated
knowledge and facility in handling a certain kind of affair and the
better fitted, therefore, he is to continue and to progress along that
line, the less relatively he is able to undertake the affairs of some
other kind with which he is not familiar. We commonly feel free to
criticize a railroad, a newspaper, a large business house, perhaps a
university, with which we may have casual contact, but the fact is
there are few competent critics outside of the ranks of the enterprise
itself or of those carrying on activities that are directly similar. In
a word, through this focusing of attention, a man will come to be
exhaustively familiar with his own occupation, while possessing a
merely superficial acquaintance with the theories, customs, and
responsibilities of those of others. The wise man therefore argues the
necessity of confining himself to the field in which he has become
expert and will avoid taking chances in some outside direction wherein
he is not familiar. One of the most common and disheartening
experiences in the money-making and money-saving of the thrifty is that
after having both worked hard and practiced self-restraint, the
resultant savings are often put into some enterprise that turns out
badly, and the whole effort is thus thrown away. Generally th