The reader's guide to the Encyclopaedia Britannica : A handbook containing…

CHAPTER XIV

712 words  |  Chapter 36

FOR INSURANCE MEN For the insurance man, whether veteran or tyro, the new ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA has much of value and importance, _and it has it in quickly available form so that the desired information may be readily found_, whether the experienced student wants an authoritative statement on a difficult point, or the beginner wishes an outline course of the subject. This availability, whether for the expert or the novice, is secured by the Index (the 29th volume), which guides the reader immediately to desired information, if he does not find it in the alphabetically arranged articles in the body of the book upon first turning up the article in which he expects the subject to be treated. To be more concrete—if you want to know something about insurance, turn first to the article INSURANCE in Volume 14, beginning on p. 656. You find an elaborate article, which would occupy about 75 pages if printed in type and on a page like this Guide. _In other encyclopaedias_ you would have no clue to the whereabouts of any information about insurance except what would be given in the article INSURANCE or in articles to which it might refer you in that article. For anything else you would have to guess how the editor’s mind had worked to find where in the book he had put other information about insurance; and to guess how each contributor’s mental processes have been related to his interest in insurance so that you might know whether in some article, on a topic apparently not related to insurance at all, the contributor had put in some interesting and important fact about insurance. But in the Britannica you have one entire volume, the 29th, which was made for the sole purpose of increasing the practical efficiency of the other 28 volumes. Under the heading _Insurance_ in this index, you will find references to many articles and cross references to Title Insurance and to Title Guarantee Companies. Apart from the fact that he has the initial _assurance_ that what he gets from the Britannica in the first place is fuller and better than he would get from another work of reference, what are the advantages offered by the index in this particular instance? _First_: Instead of having a reference to volume 14 only he has references to volumes 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28,—nineteen volumes in all,—say a gain of 1800% in efficiency. _Second_: Instead of having one article Insurance to refer to, he has reference to specific information in the following articles: _Annuity_, _Austria_, _Average_, _Barratry_, _Bonus_, _Employers’ Liability_, _Fire and Fire Extinction_, _Friendly Societies_, _Gaming and Wagering_, _Guarantee_, _Income Tax_, _Infanticide_, _Japan_, _Land Registration_, _Lloyds_, _Mensuration_, _Novation_, _Old Age Pensions_, _Post Office_, _Probability_, _Shipbuilding_, _Socialism_, _Switzerland_, _Title Guarantee Companies_, _Tontine_, _Underwriter_, _Unemployment_, _Warranty_. That is, to 28 new articles,—say 2800% additional gain. Observe, too, that this is a gain that cannot be expressed in figures. The index references are classified. First there is a main head _Insurance_; then subheads, _Fire_, _Life_, _Marine_, _Title_, _Workmen’s_; and under the subheads special topics arranged alphabetically. In brief, the Index facilitates and accelerates reference to anything in the Britannica that bears on any desired topic. The article INSURANCE opens with a definition of that word and with drawing a distinction between it and “assurance.” The general history of insurance traces marine insurance back to Greek commerce in the 4th century B.C., but shows that modern methods of marine insurance were unknown until the 14th century; that fire insurance dates from the 17th century and especially from the Great Fire of London in 1666; and that, although there were a few instances of life insurance in the 16th and 17th centuries, it did not become a regular business until the 18th century and was not widely extended until the 19th century. Separate sections of the article deal with _Casualty_ (or accident) and _Miscellaneous Insurance_, _Fire Insurance_, _Life Insurance_, _British Post Office Insurance_, and _Marine Insurance_. The section on British Post-Office Insurance will give to the American insurance man a knowledge of this innovation in the post-office to which the American post-office seems to be tending, if one may judge by the

Chapters

1. Chapter 1 2. INTRODUCTION 3. Part 1 contains 30 chapters, each designed for readers engaged in, or 4. Part 2 contains 30 chapters, each devoted to a course of systematic 5. Part 3 is devoted to the interests of children. The first of its 6. Part 4 suggests readings on questions of the day which relate to 7. Part 5, especially for women, deals with their legal and political 8. Part 6 is an analysis of the many departments of the Britannica which 9. PART I 10. Chapter 1. For Farmers 3 11. PART II 12. Chapter 31. Music 175 13. PART III 14. Chapter 61. Readings for Parents 371 15. PART IV 16. Chapter 64. 393 17. PART V 18. Chapter 65. 411 19. PART VI 20. Chapter 66. 425 21. PART I 22. CHAPTER I 23. CHAPTER II 24. CHAPTER III 25. CHAPTER IV 26. CHAPTER V 27. CHAPTER VI 28. CHAPTER VII 29. CHAPTER VIII 30. CHAPTER IX 31. CHAPTER X 32. CHAPTER XI 33. CHAPTER XII 34. CHAPTER XIII 35. introduction, from which we learn that the first legal statute in which 36. CHAPTER XIV 37. introduction of postal savings-banks and the adoption of the 38. CHAPTER XV 39. CHAPTER XVI 40. CHAPTER XVII 41. CHAPTER XVIII 42. 1. Articles on continents contain authoritative and original accounts of 43. 2. The articles on separate countries, on the individual states of the 44. 3. The articles on cities show the relation of each centre to the 45. 4. The maps as well as the many plans of cities, all of which were 46. 5. The articles on various branches of engineering and mechanics, 47. 6. The articles devoted exclusively to the subject, of which a brief 48. CHAPTER XIX 49. introduction of steam. 50. CHAPTER XX 51. CHAPTER XXI 52. CHAPTER XXII 53. CHAPTER XXIII 54. CHAPTER XXIV 55. CHAPTER XXV 56. introduction is furnished by VETERINARY SCIENCE (Vol. 28, p. 2), by Drs. 57. CHAPTER XXVI 58. CHAPTER XXVII 59. CHAPTER XXVIII 60. Part 4 of the Guide, with its special references to the subjects to 61. CHAPTER XXIX 62. CHAPTER XXX 63. PART II 64. CHAPTER XXXI 65. CHAPTER XXXII 66. CHAPTER XXXIII 67. CHAPTER XXXIV 68. CHAPTER XXXV 69. CHAPTER XXXVI 70. CHAPTER XXXVII 71. CHAPTER XXXVIII 72. CHAPTER XXXIX 73. CHAPTER XL 74. CHAPTER XLI 75. prologue (see the article LOGOS, by the late Rev. Dr. Stewart Dingwall 76. introduction, in which Paul’s attitude toward Jewish legalism is made an 77. chapter 3; MATTHEW, for a similar view of the gospel and the Church; and 78. CHAPTER XLII 79. CHAPTER XLIII 80. 1846. F. W. Taussig, Harvard 81. CHAPTER XLIV 82. CHAPTER XLV 83. CHAPTER XLVI 84. CHAPTER XLVII 85. CHAPTER XLVIII 86. Introduction: “Charity,” as used in New Testament, means love and 87. Part I.—Primitive Charity—highly developed idea of duty to guest or 88. Part II.—Charity among the Greeks. “In Crete and Sparta the citizens 89. Part III.—Charity in Roman Times. “The system obliged the hard-working 90. Part IV.—Jewish and Christian Charity. In Christianity a fusion of 91. Part V.—Medieval Charity and its Development. St. Francis and his 92. Part VI.—After the Reformation. “The religious life was to be 93. CHAPTER XLIX 94. CHAPTER L 95. CHAPTER LI 96. CHAPTER LII 97. CHAPTER LIII 98. CHAPTER LIV 99. CHAPTER LV 100. CHAPTER LVI 101. CHAPTER LVII 102. CHAPTER LVIII 103. CHAPTER LIX 104. CHAPTER LX 105. PART III 106. CHAPTER LXI 107. CHAPTER LXII 108. CHAPTER LXIII 109. PART IV 110. CHAPTER LXIV 111. introduction of Flemish weavers to England and the forced migration of 112. PART V 113. CHAPTER LXV 114. PART VI 115. CHAPTER LXVI

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