Collateral Readings: Publications of local Board of Health.
Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Chicago, 1893,
volume on "Hospitals, Dispensaries, {107} and Nursing." "Instructive
District Nursing," M. K. Sedgewick in "Forum," Vol. XXII, pp. 297 sq.
"The Feeble-minded," Dr. George H. Knight in Proceedings of
Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 150 sq. See also
discussion in same volume, pp. 460 sq. "The Care of Epileptics,"
William P. Letchworth in Proceedings of Twenty-third National
Conference of Charities, pp. 199 sq. "Industrial Education of
Epileptics," Dr. William P. Spratling in Proceedings of Twenty-fourth
National Conference of Charities, pp. 69 sq. "Destitute
Convalescents: After Care of the Insane," Dr. Richard Dewey in the
same, pp. 76 sq. See also discussion on pp. 464 sq.
[1] "American Charities," p. 40.
[2] Proceedings of the Nineteenth Conference of Charities, Denver, 1892, pp. 91 sq.
{108}
CHAPTER VII
SPENDING AND SAVING
There is a new school of philanthropists that are inclined to make light of thrift, and to class both industry and thrift among the merely "economic virtues." To this school must belong the settlement worker who spoke of thrift as "ordinarily rather demoralizing." [1] But another objection to thrift which has been made by settlement workers is that it was only good for the working classes "until their employers discovered that there was a margin to their employees' wages."
Is it true that industry and thrift are merely economic virtues? We instinctively feel that they are something more. One has only to think of a lazy man to get an impression of something essentially contemptible and {109} cowardly. On the other hand the man that loves work and throws himself into it with energy is winning more than material rewards. The thriftless and the extravagant, whether rich or poor, are often mean and self-indulgent, lacking the first quality of the unselfish in lacking self-control. In teaching industry and thrift, therefore,—though these virtues, like others, have an unlovely side,—we may feel that we are dealing with two of the elements out of which not only character but all the social virtues are built.
Nor will the pessimistic theory that the worker must spend as much as possible on indifferent food and housing in order to keep up the rate of wages, bear the light of common sense. It is true that the man who merely hoards for the sake of hoarding, developing no new and higher wants, no clearly defined aims, will still be almost as helpless as the most thriftless. But no one is more helpless against the encroachments of employers than the man who lives from hand to mouth, whose necessities press ever hard upon him, crippling him and crippling those {110} with whom he competes in the open market. Then again, successful coöperation is impossible to the thriftless. The lack of self-control, the lack of power to defer their pleasures, unfits them for combined effort and makes it more difficult for them to be loyal to their fellow-workmen. Visitors can advocate thrift, therefore, for both economic and moral reasons.
There is a use of the word "thrift" that may help us to realize its best meaning. Gardeners call a plant of vigorous growth a "thrifty" plant. Let us bear this in mind in our charitable work, and remember that anything that hinders vigorous growth is essentially unthrifty. Thrift means something more than the hoarding of small savings. In fact, saving at the expense of health, or training, or some other necessary preparation for successful living, is always unthrifty. It is unthrifty to live in damp rooms to secure cheaper rent; it is unthrifty to put aside money for burial insurance when the children are underfed; it is unthrifty either to buy patent medicines or to neglect early symptoms of disease in order to save a doctor's bill; above all, it {111} is unthrifty to take young children away from school and force them to become breadwinners. Thrift, therefore, includes spending as well as saving.