TEACHING GIRLS THE VALUE OF MONEY. 689 



calculate interest quickly, the manner of filling out a lease in renting 

 property, explaining about mortgages, and giving her a lesson as to 

 what were the best investments — she would know enough to steer 

 clear of the many sharks and vultures which usually find her a 

 ready prey. The woman who does not know the difference between 

 a registered and coupon bond should be ashamed to acknowledge 

 such ignorance. A parent's neglect in teaching his child about 

 monetary affairs is culpable, almost amounting to a crime. There is 

 nothing so costly as ignorance. This very fortune which you have 

 taken infinite pains to accumulate will be perhaps dissipated, owing 

 to your want of forethought in imparting the requisite knowledge 

 to your child. This information she will in after years buy for 

 herself at a heavy premium. If knowledge is power in other matters, 

 it is more than ever true in monetary affairs. Power to keep your 

 fortune is a power worth having, and more difficult to acquire than to 

 make a fortune. Let a girl but try to earn five dollars, and she will see 

 the task is not an easy one. Then, unless she be a fool, she will realize 

 that what is so difficult to obtain should not be wasted. 



I recall the case of a fashionable woman in New York society 

 which came under my own observation. Her husband told me he 

 had deposited in a bank a large sum of money for his wife to draw 

 on, given her a bank and check book, explained and showed her how 

 to draw checks. He very sensibly thought that it would be a far 

 better plan for her to pay her bills herself, instead of coming to 

 him every time she needed money. His relief from being her almoner 

 was of short duration, for in less than a month she came to him, and, 

 throwing the check and bank books on his library table, told him it 

 was too much trouble — she could not make head or tail of it; she 

 wished to return to the old system! He could pay her bills in 

 future. This woman had been married twenty years. Too much 

 trouble, is it? Yes, I believe this is the keynote why women are 

 so ignorant. They are lazy, pure and simple. The details of business 

 are too dry and uninteresting. It is so much easier to have some one 

 else do the work for you. So much less exertion to read a novel, 

 or ride the wheel with some attractive man. " How prosaic," yeu 

 say, " to add up account books, balance check books, and calculate 

 whether your tax bill is correct when your property is assessed at the 

 rate of 2.01!" 



I believe, if the truth were told, half the divorces in which the 

 reason given is incompatibility of temper arise from the fact that 

 women know nothing of the value of money. I am not speaking 

 entirely of women who have their own property, but also of those 

 who are dependent on a husband's income. The wife has a vague idea 

 that there is an inexhaustible supply of cash somewhere ! What man 



VOL. LIV. — 52 



