METHODS OF TEACHING POLITICAL ECONOMY. 35 



fore, visible expression of the abstract relationships, by diagrams, or 

 by any figures which represent the abstract in a concrete form, will be 

 of very considerable service to the ordinary student. This matter 

 seems to me to be of such practical importance in teaching that it 

 will be worth while to illustrate my meaning by a few examples : 

 (a.) Since material wealth comprises all things that have value ; since 

 capital is only that wealth employed in reproduc- 

 tion, and not used by the owner himself ; and 

 since money is that part of wealth in circulation 

 aiding in the transfer of goods the relations be- 

 tween the three may be expressed to the com- 

 monest apprehension by some such device as the 

 following, in which the area of circle A represents 

 the amount of wealth ; B, the capital saved out of 

 the total wealth ; and C, the money by which goods are transferred 

 only that part of circle C being capital which, inside of circle B, is 

 being used as a means to production. 



Again (6), it is seen that different classes of laborers, arranged ac- 

 cording to their skill, form, as it were, social strata, of which the largest 

 and the poorest paid is composed of the unskilled laborers at the bottom. 

 This may be shown to the eye at once by the sections of a pyramid, 

 in which A represents the largest and least paid class ; B, C, and D, 

 etc., the better-educated, and relatively more skillful laborers ; ending 

 finally in the few, at the top, of the most competent executive man- 

 agers. Now, if A were to become as fully skilled as B, and competi- 



tion should become free between all members of A and B ; and if this 

 were to go on in the same way to include C the effects of this break- 

 ing down of the barriers which hinder competition might be illus- 

 trated by the following changes in the above pyramid : the areas of 

 A, B, and C may be thrown together into one area within the whole 

 of which movement and choice is perfectly free to the laborer, and 

 wherein wages are in proportion to sacrifice. This can be done by 

 striking out the lines of division between A, B, and C, and by rep- 

 resenting the change by the area included between the base and the 

 dotted lines. 



Examples might be continued in illustration of my method, but 

 these must suffice. By this means there can be planted inside even the 



