Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1915 — School Savings Banks. [ARTICLE]

School Savings Banks.

" 'The value of school savings blinks is widely recognized'” says a report from, the bureau of education at Washington, “School saving develops the child’s individuality and self-re-sponsibility, causing him to consider the earning value of money, and to understand it as a comfort factor and a power for good. Realization of the accumulative force and,inter-est-bearing ability of small sums of money becomes an incentive to save from waste. As a nation we need to develop the sense of economy and thrift. In general, Americans know better hoyy to earn than how to save. It is very difficult to teach thrift to men and women who have grown up ignorant of its first essentials. In children, however, we. have unWrought material to work with, and we can as readily impress them with the habit of economy as .we can teach them arithmetic and geography. Frugality is one of the most important factors of citizenship. ‘ There can be a stimulating relation between postal savings banks and school savings: banks. In the short time in which the postal savings plan has been in operation, it has amply demonstrated its effectiveness in offering a wide open opportunity for people of all ages over ten years to deposit conveniently and safely small amounts of money. There were 10.903 offices- where patrons could deposit postal savings on deposit’. That about one-tenth of the depositors were : children from tenjtn fourteen years of age exemplifies the willingpess, of children to accept and profit by the opportunity of saving money they' might otherwise waste. It also indicates the propriety of giving systematic instruction in thrift and allowing children to deposit their pennies before they are ten years of age. The school savngjs bank is the guiding, training force ; the postal savings bank the safeguarding force. Both are requisite. School savings banks are in use in all the public schools in France and Belgium, and in borne of the schools in England, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Australia, Switzerland and Canada. In Reykjavik, Iceland, the savings system was introduced by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 190 S, and the savings of 750 scholars average 2,500 Danish crowns yearly. In Parral, Mexico, it was established by the aid of a missionary in 1898, and it was introduced into the schools of Summerfield, Prinde Edward Island, in JS9I. Francois Laurent, born in . <’

Belgium in 1810, who spent most of his life as professor civil law in the I Diversity of Ghent, dying there in 188 7, formulated the system of teaching children thrift through school savings. ! "The first systematic attempt at a school savings bank plan in the I nited States, so far is is known, was that of Seneno F. Merrill, superintendent.of schools in Beloit, Wis., who introduced the system in his Schools in 18741. In 1873 Mr. Merrill had gone as a state commissioner to the Vienna exposition and had there attended the conference on elimination of poverty at which Professor Laurent's plan of school savings used in the schools of Ghent had been strongly indorsed. Mr, Merrill thus had his interest aroused in the problem of systematic thrift teaching, and it was the'eard system of thrift teaching, originated by M. DuJac, perfected and exploited by Professor Laurent, that he introduced into the Beloit schools in 1876. '■

“Although various newspaper articles were written about the plan and benefits of school saving for children by Mr. Merrill, John P. Townsend, of New York city, and others, apparently the work did not. extend beyond the Beloit public schools, where- it was used for five years. In the winter of 1879 Capt. R. If. Pratt, superintendent of the Carlisle (Pa.) Indian Training school, established a saving system for the Indians under his supervision. The boys and girls kept an average of SIO,OOO to-their credit for-years, and took trunks, clothing, and books purchased with their own earnings back to their western homes, as well as some accumulations of their own school savings in money. “It was John Henry T,hiry who instituted the school savings bank system on a permanent footing in the United States in 1885. Mr. Thiry was a native of Belgium. Coming to America, in 1859, he built up a large book business in New York, and retired in 1873, devoting the remainder of his life to horticulture and to school work, particularly the school savings bank, which became the dominant interest of his later years.” In Indiana there are school savings banks in East Chicago, Ft. Wayne, Goshen, New Albany and South Bend, with something more than 3,000 depositors, who had originally to their credit about’ $27,000, There is now on hand, however, only about s(7,ooo—an average of $2 per each depositor.—lndianapolis News.