222 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



dy store" and often spend more than the 

 children of the well-to-do. They grow up 

 without habits of saving and as they be- 

 gin to earn money their out-lay increases 

 in proportion to their increase of wages so 

 that nothing is laid up for the inevitable 

 "rainy day," and sickness or death finds 

 them as a rule entirely unprepared for the 

 expenses incident to either event. There 

 is a vast difference between economy and 

 miserliness, but too many confuse the two 

 and go to the other extreme ; spending all 

 their income with an optomistic faith in 

 something ' 'turning up" in the future. 

 The various small savings banks have a 

 tendency to correct this evil and when 

 once a child has been persuaded to save a 

 little money he is very apt to see the wis- 

 dom of it and continue the habit as he 

 grows older. School savings banks are 

 comparatively new institutions in this 

 country, but their success in Great Brit- 

 ain proves what a boon they are to whole 

 communities. J. B. Breed, in writing in 

 the California Oitrograph, gives some 

 statistics in reference to the school sav- 

 ings banks in New York state where they 

 have been in successful operation for sev- 

 eral years. In 1894 the board of educa- 

 tion in New York gave permission to pri- 

 mary and grammer schools to establish, in 

 their classes, stations of the Penny Provi- 

 dent Fund. A number of schools have 

 started stations with gratifying results, 

 the scholars in the schools of the poorer 

 districts making a good showing. In a 

 school in which 31 children deposit the 

 amount was $122, in another school where 

 there were 1 40 depositors the amount Avas 

 $1,291. Mr. Breed says: "Thousands 

 of children are now doing business at this 

 bank, and their aggregate deposits are 

 moie than $16,000. These school banks 

 are in a large number of our different 

 states, not only in schools, but they are 

 blessing whole communities, who have op- 

 portunities for depositing the smallest 

 amounts of money. In Great Britain these 

 penny savings schemes are considered of 

 such great use as helping the poor to save 



their small coin and to create habits of 

 thrift, that they have a postal savings 

 bank with 1,200 branches, and every post- 

 office in the united kingdom is also a 

 branch, and in these, together, they have 

 seven million depositors and hold in trust 

 six hundred million dollars. I am afraid 

 to put these amounts in figures, or it 

 might be thought the transcriber or the 

 priater had made a big mistake. The ele- 

 montry school work with the banks, and 

 the children form a large percentage of 

 depositors. It is said that so greatly have 

 these savings been appreciated by the 

 masses that one in every five of the people 

 in England and Wales are depositors, and 

 one in every fourteen in Ireland and Scot- 

 land has an account also. This subject is 

 considered of so much importance by those 

 who see its beneficent workings, where it 

 is in good working order, that our consul 

 to Lyons has recently made a report to 

 our state department in reference to the 

 matter. He says children in France are 

 depositors, and long before a girl is over 

 her fondness for dolls, she is depositing in 

 the savings bank. He speaks of a washer 

 woman who has six children, each one of 

 whom deposits from one to ten sous per 

 week. I have said all that needs to be 

 said in regard to this important subject. 

 It does not seem possible that our brave^ 

 active, up-to-date people will not enter in- 

 to this matter with the heartiness and zeal 

 that characterizes them in other matters^ 

 some of which, surely, are not of more im- 

 portance than this. The additional work 

 that will have to be performed by teach- 

 ers need not prevent any one from enter- 

 ing heartily into this work, I would rather 

 say, from the enjoyment of conferring so 

 great a benefit on those who need such 

 help. A half hour a week will be all the 

 time needed for one or two to do all need- 

 ful work." 



