He wisely
contends that simple lessons on money, its nature, its value, and its
uses, together with the various duties of giving, spending, and saving,
would have a vast influence on the rising generation.
The practice of teaching children provident habits has been adopted for
about eight years in the National Schools of Belgium. The School Board
of Ghent is convinced of the favourable influence that saving has upon
the moral and material well-being of the working classes, and believes
that the best means of causing the spirit of economy to penetrate their
habits is to teach it to the children under tuition, and to make them
practise it.
It is always very difficult to teach anything new to adults,--and
especially lessons of thrift to men who are thriftless. Their method of
living is fixed. Traditional and inveterate habits of expenditure exist
among them. With men, it is the drinking-shop; with women, it is dress.
They spend what they earn, and think nothing of to-morrow. When reduced
to a state of distress, they feel no shame in begging; for the feeling
of human dignity has not yet been sufficiently developed in them.
With children it is very different. They have no inveterate habits to
get rid of. They will, for the most part, do as they are taught. And
they can be taught economy, just as they can be taught arithmetic.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210