Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 204, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1916 — TRAINING TODAY’S BOYS AND GIRLS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TRAINING TODAY’S BOYS AND GIRLS

They Should Be Taught the Meaning of Thrift. FROM A NEW POINT OF VIEW Child Must Be Encouraged to Think of Cost In Terms of Human Effort, Rather Than of Price. By SIDONIE M. GRUENBERQ. WHATEVER benefits may flow. from the training of children, they are supposed to have some relation to the future; but the training itself is founded upon the experience of the past. That educating children to live tomorrow according to the wisdom of yesterday is not always a sound procedure is illustrated by the prevailing attitude toward “thrift.” Everyone, nearly, pays formal homage to the supposed virtue of thrift, and everyone, nearly, resents in his inmost heart the niggardliness and narrowness suggested by the word. In this country thrift has traditionally meant the scheme of savings worked out under pioneer conditions during Colonial times. It applies, of course, to the whole economic outlook, but it is especially prominent in connection with the idea of saving. The early settlers found plenty of land and plenty of timber; but the products of labor were to be attained only with much effort. Raw materials that involved labor, such as wool and linen and all of the metals, which had to be brought from Europe, were carefully hoarded. Clothes were mended and patched until they simply could not hold together any longer, and then the rags were saved for carpets and quilts, or for making paper. A patch was an evidence of “thrift,” and thrift was a commendable virtue. But the cultivation of land was carried on in a most wasteful manner, and good timber was burned and destroyed with wanton disregard for the future needs of the country. These facts only emphasize the fallacy of the common notion that we may teach such an abstraction as a “virtue” and then expect it to perform its function in the regulation of human life. Thrift was very earnestly cultivated, but it had no meaning except in, relation to particular kinds of commodities. Fire and fat had to be saved, but whatever was plentiful was disregarded as carelessly as the present generation disregards matches and paper. Yet every generation has to teach its young the best that it knows about the handling of the material basis of life. The difficulty lies in not recognizing that economic changes are constantly going on, and that it is necessary to readjust past experience to new situations. A little boy who had acquired an interest in spending money

was given an opportunity to exercise this interest by being sent to the neighborhood stores to buy as much as possible for the household. His father, thinking to combine the business of learning with the pleasure of spending, suggested that the child keep a record of all that he bought for his mother. “When I was your age,” he said, “I kept an account of all of grandmother’s household expenses.” The child’s mother was at a loss. She approved of the boy’s w'riting and adding ; but she also realized the difficulty she had in making her husband understand that the prices with which he became familiar as a boy were no longer current. She wished that he had never been so thoroughly drilled in the prices of the early 80’s of the last century. This father, like so many others, continued to think of cost and saving in terms that no longer apply. In the same way, every family cultivates its pet economies—and its pet extravagances. In a certain family sugar is looked upon as the index of frugality; whoever takes two or more lumps of sugar to the cup Is extravagant, and “whoever takes one or none is thrifty. In this same family are trunks full of old clothes that no one will ever use, and the rental cost of storing them Is equivalent to more than a tenth of the total cost of the dwelling. Yet these people think nothing of spending several thousand dollars a year on motor cars—because motor cars came into their llvas after the standards of thrift had become established. We shall have to teach thrift, or its present-day equivalent, from a new point of view. We have learned that nfaterials of all kinds have value in proportion to their contribution to human welfare, and not in proportion to

their price*. Ou the other hand, v* have learned to think of cost in term* of human effort, rather than In terms of price. The children can learn to think of their surroundings in the same way, although It is almost impossible to escape the idea of price entirely. A teacher once observed, a child crumpling up a piece of jlaper that she had “spoiled” by a few slight pencil marks. On being reproved, the girl affected an injured air—it seemed to her rather small to make a fuss about a cheap piece of paper. The teacher got the attention of the class and set before it a new problem In arithmetic. There are so many sheets of this kind of paper in a pad, and the board of education pays so many cents a pad. The little girl who precipitated this problem curled up her lips triumphantly—the sheet she had spoiled cost a very tiny fraction of a cent! But, the teacher continued, there were several hundred thousand pupils in the schools of the * city, and the average attendance was about 175 days a year. What would it cost the city to give each child an additional sheet of this paper each day? The fraction of a cent Is not worth considering; but the wanton and unnecessary waste of materials is worth very seriously considering. ' w Instead, however, of fixing the child’s attention

upon the sugar or the paper, we should try, as quickly as possible, to get him to think in the larger aspects of the problem. A child of seven or eight Is usually quite capable of understanding the principle of avoiding waste, and of applying it quite generally to all kinds of materials. The other side of our problem is so establish through the routine of the home a sane altitude toward the whole question of the use of materials. It is not enough to repeat from time the adage about being “penny wise and pound foolish.” It is necessary constantly to keep before tile children the idea that the justification for getting is not having, but using. Material wealth is to contribute not to our repute, not to our power over others, but to life more abundant.

A Patch Was an Evidence of Thrift, and Thrift Was a Commendable Virtue.

Suggested That He Keep a Record of All That He Bought.