THRIFT 



5802 



THRIFT 



the type of citizens she will need. From an eco- 

 nomic standpoint, thrift is a national necessity. 



Andrew Carnegie has emphasized the value 

 of thrift in the following epigram: "The first 

 thing that a man should learn to do is to save 

 his money." From Lord Rosebery we learn 

 that "Thrift is the surest and strongest founda- 

 tion of an empire, so sure, so strong, and so 

 necessary that no great empire can long exist 

 that disregards it." To the same statesman we 

 are indebted also for the following excellent, 

 comprehensive definition : 



Whatever thrift is, it is not avarice. Avarice 

 is not generosity and, after all, it is the thrifty 

 people who are generous. All true generosity can 

 only proceed from thrift, because it is not gener- 

 osity to give money which does not belong to 

 you, as is the case with the unthrifty, and I ven- 

 ture to say that all the great philanthropists all 

 the great financial benefactors of their species, of 

 whom we have any record, the most generous of 

 all must have been thrifty men. 



President Woodrow Wilson's idea of thrift is 

 given as follows: 



If a man does not provide for his children ; if he 

 does not provide for all who are dependent upon 

 him and if he has not that vision of conditions 

 to come, and that care for the days that have not 

 yet gone, which we sum up in the whole idea of 

 thrift and savings, then he has not opened his 

 eyes to any adequate conception of human life. 

 We are in this world not to provide for ourselves 

 alone but for others, and that is the basis of 

 economy so that thrift and economy, and every- 

 thing which ministers to thrift and economy, sup- 

 ply the foundations of national life. 



In America, there has been for some time a 

 popular misconception of thrift as applied to 

 the individual. To be thrifty meant, in the 

 minds of many, to be greedy, avaricious, mi- 

 serly. However, as a result of the work of the 

 American Society for Thrift, organized in 1913 

 by Simon W. Straus, a truer understanding of 

 thrift became general. Organization of the 

 society followed investigations made in several 

 European countries by Mr. Straus, who re- 

 ceived a commission from the United States 

 government through the Bureau of Education 

 to conduct these economic researches. 



In the European countries visited, he found 

 that thrift was the safeguard of the individual. 

 In the face of a low earning capacity, even among 

 the most poorly paid classes, thrift was prac- 

 ticed and money was saved, thus assuring the 

 individual an income during the periods of un- 

 employment, sickness and old age; and in the 

 aggregate adding greatly to the potential power 

 of a nation. These conditions contrasted 

 sharply with the profligate ways of the prosper- 



ous American, and Mr. Straus, on his return 

 from Europe, began at once the organization of 

 the American Society for Thrift, which col- 

 lected no funds and had for its purpose a purely 

 educational propaganda. 



In 1915, Mr. Straus was invited by the Pana- 

 ma-Pacific Exposition to preside at an Interna- 

 tional Congress of Thrift, to be held on the 

 Exposition grounds. At this congress it was 

 decided that the teaching of thrift in the public 

 schools in the United States would lay a foun- 

 dation for the practice of this virtue by future 

 generations. A committee was appointed to 

 wait on the National Education Association 

 then holding its annual meeting in Oakland, 

 Cal., and asked the cooperation of that body. 

 The National Education Association took up 

 the movement and delegated the National 

 Council of Education, a subsidiary body, to 

 prosecute the work. A committee, consisting of 

 members of the National Education Association 

 and the American Society for Thrift, was ap- 

 pointed as the Thrift Educational Committee, 

 and they spent two years in research and in- 

 vestigation. 



During the school years 1915-1916-1917 the 

 National Education Association also held essay- 

 writing contests on the subject of thrift in 

 which cash prizes and medals were awarded. 

 Over 150,000 American school children wrote 

 essays in these contests. In the school year 

 1916-1917 an essay contest on thrift was inaugu- 

 rated by the board of education of New York 

 City, -and over 400,000 pupils in the elementary 

 grades of the schools of the American metropo- 

 lis participated for cash prizes aggregating 

 $1,000. These contests were held under the 

 auspices of the American Society for Thrift. 



The Thrift Educational Committee made a 

 report to the effect that thrift, as a distinct and 

 concrete branch of studies, could not be in- 

 troduced into the already overcrowded curricula 

 of the American schools, but that through 

 correlation of those subjects which should exist 

 as the basis of every good curriculum, it could 

 be worked out. This resolution definitely com- 

 mitting the official school governing body of 

 America to the policy of revising the curricula 

 sufficient to include a thrift application to many 

 branches, was introduced at the meeting of the 

 National Council of Education in Portland, 

 Oregon, July 7, 1917, by Simon W. Straus, 

 president of the American Society for Thrift. 

 Having thus committed themselves to this 

 policy, the school authorities, through a sub- 

 committee, appointed at their Portland meet' 



