charitable institutions through improvidence, fewer devotees to the liquor habit, and less discontent and destitution everywhere. Thoughtlessness is a great tributary to improvidence and want. Surely the masses need education in thrift. This is the province of the school savings banks system. It is an educational factor. It claims to teach virtue, because all virtues require self-control and husbanding of strength and resources, and these things invariably lead to thrift. The saving of time, of strength, of health, of intellectual force, of moral integrity, are all allied to the saving of money.

POSTAL SAVINGS AND SCHOOL SAVINGS.

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 10 years to deposit conveniently and safely small amounts of money. There were 10,903 offices where patrons could deposit postal savings on January 31, 1914, and $40,037,884 on deposit. That about one-tenth of the depositors were children from 10 to 14 years of age exemplifies the willingness 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 10 years of age. The school savings bank is the guiding, training force; the postal savings bank the safe-guarding force. Both are requisite.

Instruction in conserving money and applying it wisely can not be impressed too early on a child; the early lessons in the employment of money belong to the schoolroom. The postal savings directors and receivers, be they ever so anxious to help the children, have little opportunity to do so. Children who have expended their pennies, nickles, and dimes in candy shops and moving-picture shows until they are 10 years old, with no thought of self-denial, may later go to the post office with a dime and buy one of the cards, but they are very likely not to have the perseverence to hold the card until they accumulate the $1 that is to be exchanged for a certificate of deposit. School savings banks are needed to prepare young people, especially those who have no careful home training, to profit by the postal savings opportunity.

II. THE SCHOOL SAVINGS MOVEMENT IN FOREIGN

COUNTRIES.

School savings banks are in use in all the public schools in France and Belgium, and in some 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 1908, 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, Prince Edward Island, in 1891.

Beginnings.-Francois Laurent, born in Belgium 1810, who spent most of his life as professor of civil law in the University of Ghent, dying there in 1887, formulated the system of teaching children thrift through school savings. He was a voluminous writer, publishing 18 volumes on "The History of Humanity," 33 volumes on "The Principles of Civil Law," and several works on saving, thrift, and cognate subjects. He won the Guinard prize, 10,000 francs, for his pamphlet "Conferences sur l'Epargne dans les Ecoles" (Lectures on Savings in the Schools) in 1873. The Guinard prize was founded by Dr. John Baptist Guinard, who died in 1867, bequeathing to the city of Ghent a legacy with the provision that every five years a prize of 10,000 francs should be awarded to the person who should produce a work or make an invention for elevating and placing the proletaire in the ranks of the bourgeois. The first prize awarded by the Government under the provisions of this legacy was given to Prof. Laurent; 12,000 copies of his pamphlet were published in Flemish and French by the Government and sent to the magistrates and schools throughout the Kingdom. This treatise on savings in the schools served not only to multiply school savings banks, but to increase largely the depositors among the laboring classes in other savings banks.

Prof. Laurent's work in Belgium attracted the attention of leaders of education in other countries. Articles were published in the newspapers of London and Paris and other places regarding the work. At the World's Exposition in Vienna in 1873 there was a conference of leading educators-Ferencz Deak, of Hungary; M. de Malarce, of France; and Prof. Laurent. The chief subject considered was the adaptability of school savings banks to further the purposes they had in view the amelioration of poverty and the improvement of individual and national life. In comparing notes they found there were no school savings banks in existence at that time, except in Belgium. M. de Malarce claimed-and not unjustly—that the idea of establishing such institutions originated with M. Dulac, a teacher in La Mau, France, who inaugurated it in his school in 1834 and continued it until 1870. Other attempts had been made by teachers in different countries, but they were isolated instances, and it remained for Prof. Laurent to formulate and popularize the plan that held and attracted the attention of the world.

School savings banks were organized throughout France in 1874, and the school or penny bank opened in England. In England it was decided to leave the introduction of school savings to the local

school boards and the voluntary action of the teachers, and the work is still conducted on that basis, being used in all the schools of some cities, but more often in certain schools and districts.

The bureau of education in France printed and distributed 22,000 copies of "A Manual of School Savings Banks," written by M. de Malarce in 1875 for the information and instruction of the teachers, and the innovation was given much popularity thereby. In a few years thereafter school savings banks were reported in 25,000 schools. The system had greater early use in the schools of Italy than in any other country, except Belgium and France.

In Canada the Victor Mission, with the approbation of the school board, began the collection of the school savings as a well-directed charity in 1894, and sent collectors or agents into a number of schools weekly for several years to receive the children's deposits and speak to them on the benefits of saving their pennies. It was entirely a charity mission and had devoted officers and members who collected and cared for the school savings, doing much good in the city of Toronto. School savings banks were established in the public schools of Winnepeg, Manitoba, and Galt and Barntford, in Ontario, in 1899, and the system continues to date in most successful use with them.

The Penny Bank of Toronto has branches in different cities and has largely aided in the extension of the work in Canada, especially in Ontario. By their latest report, for the year ending June 30, 1913, they have received as the children's school savings $266,522.77, the amount coming from the public schools of Toronto, Barrie, Belleville, Berlin, Bowmanville, Brampton, Campbellford, Carelton Place, Cobalt, Collingwood, Galt, Guelph, Hamilton, London, Midland, Montreal, North Bay, Oakville, Orangeville, Oshawa, Ottawa, Paris, Port Hope, Preston, Prince Albert, St. John (N. B.), Smiths Falls, Stratford, St. Thomas, Swansea, and Woodstock. The increase in deposits was $49,815 over those of last year. Mr. M. A. Mackenzie, manager of the penny bank of Toronto, writes: "School savings have been established in 12 new schools during the year."

As to the present status of school-savings teaching in England, reports show that teachers are advised and expected, in reading lessons and so on, to inculcate in children the importance of thrift. In Hull the work is pronounced a great success. The actuary of the bank cooperating wrote:

The educational authorities arranged with this bank to establish school savings banks in the Hull schools, to be worked by the head teachers, and they are a great success. Interest on individual deposits of a scholar is allowed when his deposit amounts to £1. The interest on the aggregate undivided school deposits forms a scholarship fund, which opens out the higher or secondary schools to some of the children in the elementary schools. These scholarships are eagerly competed for each year, and examinations for them are managed by a cooperative committee.

Advices received late in 1913 from Baroness Emilie von Hausen, of Dresden, indicate that the school savings banks, on different systems, are much in use in Germany. In Dresden, as in France and Belgium, the card system is used. In Munich a system of automats is in vogue. In the regular schools of the latter city 15,500 scholars have saved 45,000 marks, while in the continuation and trade schools 869 students deposited 6,400 marks.

III. THE SCHOOL SAVINGS MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED

STATES.

The first systematic attempt at a school savings bank plan in the United States, so far as is known, was that of Sereno F. Merrill, superintendent of schools of Beloit, Wis., who introduced the system in his schools in 1876. In 1873 Mr. Merrill had gone as State commissioner to the Vienna exposition and had there attended the conference on elimination of poverty at which Prof. Laurent's plan of school savings used in the schools of Ghent had been strongly indorsed.1 Mr. Merrill thus had his interest aroused in the problem of systematic thrift-teaching, and it was the card system of thrift-teaching, originated by M. Dulac, perfected and exploited by Prof. Laurent, that he introduced into the Beloit public schools in 1876.

Although various newspaper articles were written about the plan and benefits of school saving for children by Mr. Merrill, Mr. 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.

Inquiry was made of Mr. Merrill as to why the system had been dropped in the Beloit school. He replied that the principal, Mr. Beach, had been called to Madison, and his successor did not continue the work. Mr. Beach was then asked for his estimate of the effect of school savings on the children. His reply was highly favorable:

The boys and the girls acquired industrious habits-were looking for and doing work in vacation. The system led to economy of time and energy, as well as of money. It made better and more faithful students. It promoted liberality in as much as it insured means with which to be generous when occasion presented.

In the winter of 1879 Capt. R. H. Pratt, superintendent of the Carlisle (Pa.) Indian Training School, established a saving system for the Indians under his supervision. The boys and the girls kept an average of $10,000 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.

1 See p. 11.

It was Mr. John Henry Thiry who instituted the school savings banks 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. He was a friend of M. de Malarce, who had charge of the school savings banks movement in France. He corresponded with him and also with Prof. Laurent, of Belgium, in regard to school savings banks methods, evolving a system which he began operating in a third-ward public school in Long Island City, on March 16, 1885.

Mr. Thiry was a zealous, indefatigable worker. He had his system perfected before he presented it. He told the bankers what a privilege it was for them to care for the savings of the school children, who would later be men and women depositing much larger sums with them; he trained the teachers to enjoy the philanthropy of helping the children to save and deposit their small amounts of money, often earned, and to encourage them to deny themselves the excess of cheap sweets that so often break down the moral resistance and health of the boy and the girl as well as tend to general waste.

During 1886 the school savings banks system was installed in 8 additional schools in Long Island City, 1 school in Islip, Long Island, 4 in Elmira, N. Y., and 6 schools in Rutland, Vt. In 1887 it was established in 12 public schools in Lincoln, Nebr., and in 6 schools in Amsterdam, N. Y., and in 1888 at 4 additional points in New York, embracing 4 schools in Hornellsville, 1 in Jamestown, 2 in Buffalo, and the Y. M. C. A. Institute in New York City. In 1889 it was introduced in the public schools of Asheville, N. C., and elsewhere.

The work of Mr. Thiry in New York led directly to the introduction of school savings banks in Norristown and Pottstown, Pa., in 1890. Several village and district schools in Montgomery County adopted the system a few weeks later. During the same year the public schools in the cities of Chester and Williamsport, Pa., and a number of smaller towns in the eastern part of this State instituted the system. These places all have thrift-teaching still in force.

Popular interest was aroused and the school savings banks movement had rather a high tide in 1891. Educational meetings and conferences of bankers passed resolutions of approval. It was a subject of discussion at the first triennial meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D. C., in February, 1891, and later was made one of the 40 lines of effort actively favored by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In 1892 Mr. Thiry reported that there were school savings banks at 52 different points in 12 States, with 27,430 pupils as depositors, and total deposits of $207,428.76.