COBBESP ONDENCE. 



407 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



INDIVIDUAL ECONOMICS. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



IT has been again and again stated, by 

 good authorities, that the American 

 people are the most wasteful upon the face 

 of the earth ; they do not utilize to any ex- 

 tent their health, strength, money, or tal- 

 ents. To any thoughtful mind there is evi- 

 dence of this on every hand. 



We might naturally suppose that our 

 many excellent modes of teaching, from 

 pulpit and teacher's desk, would eradicate 

 this evil ; but, on the contrary, the accesso- 

 ries of our churches and schools become 

 more extravagant every year, and there is 

 less to be hoped from them. There are 

 many ill-balanced minds among the youth 

 attending our schools. These, with their 

 intellectual tastes aroused, leave school very 

 poorly equipped to battle with the exigen- 

 cies of modern life ; consequently, many of 

 our so-called educated youth become strand- 

 ed as embezzlers in State prisons or pa- 

 tients in insane asylums. 



When we study the causes which lead 

 to the great amount of wretchedness, pov- 

 erty, and crime in our land, it is evident 

 that good effects would result to our people 

 if every child could be taught to see the 

 wisdom of properly economizing health, 

 strength, money, and talents. In order to 

 do this, public opinion must first be con- 

 verted. People must realize that such men 

 as George Bancroft, the historian ; Robert 

 C. Winthrop, the statesman ; and William 

 W. Corcoran, the philanthropist, and other 

 noble octogenarians, could never have at- 

 tained their great age and to such positions 

 of honor among their fellow-men save by 

 great self-denial and economy. To be sure, 

 the law of heredity comes in to aid some 

 persons ; but do you not think, if the princi- 

 ples prevailed which governed the early life 

 of Whittier and the frugal homes of New 

 England, that each succeeding generation 

 would reach a higher plane in social life ? 

 We expect certain intellectual results from 

 public - school methods ; why not expect 

 moral benefits to the child's character as 

 well ? There are many teachers who strive 

 for this, like wise Mark Hopkins ; but the 

 field of education is so extensive, and the 

 attention of educators is so absorbed in 

 other matters, that little attention is given 

 to individual economics. Do not under- 

 stand me to desire the inculcation of pe- 

 nuriousness among our young people, but 

 simply wisdom and moderation in all our af- 

 fairs. It has been customary at some board- 

 ing schools to have printed upon the plates 



from which the pupils eat such sentences 

 as "Waste not, want not." Such are not 

 the means that I would urge for teaching 

 economy, but that our leaders in society, on 

 the press, in the pulpit, and all teachers, 

 should unite to enforce the great principles 

 of economy and moderation by example and 

 throughout all their teachings. Even teach- 

 ers of natural history can bring their in- 

 struction to bear upon this point, from the 

 innumerable instances of economy in nature. 



When a colored girl in Washington re- 

 plied to a reprimand for being late at school 

 that the cook was absent and her mother 

 was sick, and of course she could not get 

 the breakfast, it showed the lack of thrift 

 and right management in that household. 

 She would have been ashamed to make that 

 reply if the influence of her home and her 

 school had not left her blind to the dignity 

 of labor and the honor to be derived from 

 doing one's duty. 



We very well know that college life is 

 the hot-bed of extravagance, and that no 

 great and united effort has been made to 

 repress this wasteful tendency. It is to be 

 hoped that when our great institutions of 

 learning have become financially endowed 

 so that they are perfectly independent, they 

 may be able to take some means to turn 

 the tide and set a fashion of economy and 

 moderation. 



Investigation shows that our poorest 

 classes are the most extravagant. On mar- 

 ket-days we find that those persons who 

 carry their entire fortunes in their hands 

 wijl purchase the highest-priced provisions, 

 which are often the least nourishing. If 

 we could have savings-banks in our schools, 

 as in England, our people who earn good 

 wages could learn to accumulate. Million- 

 aires tell us that it is the first thousand 

 dollars which is the hardest to earn inter- 

 est then increases of itself. Have we not 

 all had the experience of helping people 

 who would not help themselves, but would, 

 by lack of self-denial or even moderation, 

 keep open some leak by which their misfor- 

 tunes were continually on the increase? 



Would there be so much temptation to 

 anarchism and crime if our working classes 

 understood the right principles of living ? 

 if they understood that fortune and suc- 

 cess are generally to be obtained only through 

 systematic living and often great self-denial ? 



It is probable that our workingmen 

 would not spend so much time and money 

 in restaurants if they could obtain well- 

 cooked food at home ; therefore, cooking 

 schools are a great help to economy. 



That early training in thrift and mod- 



