A Lecture on Savings Banks in Elementary Schools.

It is now some twenty years since my attention was first drawn to thrift as a matter deserving of and requiring the special care and fostering attention of all interested in the well-being of the working classes. I was then residing in an agricultural district, some distance from any town. There were no Savings Banks at all within a radius of several miles, and those distant ones only open on certain days, and at inconvenient hours. The Post Office Savings Banks had not sprung into existence, and, as far as I know, Penny Banks were only to be found in some of the largest cities of the north. We had not even heard the name then.

Mixing with the labouring population, and becoming acquainted with their habits and circumstances in the course of my work as curate, I found that almost without exception they lived from hand to mouth. They lived on, spending each week the whole earnings of that week, and looking to the next to provide for its own necessities, knowing that they could always fall back upon the parish, and looking forward without any repining to the workhouse as the refuge for their old age. In fact, so far from feeling any repugnance to the thought of being dependent upon the parish for support in age, sickness, or misfortune, they looked on their own payments of rates as a sort of insurance premium by which they had acquired a right to such maintenance. In fact, when reasoned with on the duty of making some provision out of present earnings for the calls of the future, they argued that there was nothing binding upon them to do so. They had a right to spend what they got as fast as they earned it, because by paying poor-rates they had secured the right to go on the parish, and so had done all that page 4 could be required or expected of them. Of course it was not universally argued in this manner, but those who were sharp enough to argue at all met one with this sort of reasoning.

Now what was to be done with these people? Manifestly the Savings Banks of those days were of no use except to the residents in towns, or to those who had opportunities of resorting to them on market days, i.e., they were useless to the bulk of the rural population. As far as my light on the subject went, no plan seemed feasible but an endeavour to induce those whom I could influence to start a money box, into which they might put any small sums they could spare, or any windfalls they might receive. In some few instances I succeeded in persuading those on whom I urged this to try what they could do, and the results gratified and surprised them as well as myself. But the usual answer I received to my suggestion was, "It might be very well for children to begin, they have plenty of time before them. It isn't worth while for me at my time of life." In fact as a rule, the "grown ups" would have nothing to do with my plans of thrift. I heard, however, of one instance of a working man who had saved money, and I went and heard what he had done. He was one of four brothers, sons of a very small farmer, and grew up as a working hand on his father's farm. He was from childhood of a careful, saving disposition, never losing a chance of earning a penny. When the four brothers were grown to be fine stalwart young men of twenty to twenty-five years of age, he was on one occasion chaffed about his careful ways until his patience could stand it no longer. He turned to bay and retorted upon his brothers,—"You've had the same chance that I've had. You've spent all you got, and haven't any one of yon a penny to bless yourselves with. You laugh at me and call me stingy, but I'll give any one of you my box of money that can carry it away." Of course there was a rush to his room to get the box and spend its contents, but it was too much for the strongest of them. There, beneath his linen in an old oak chest, in the identical coins, chiefly old heavy copper, in which it had been saved, lay no less a sum page 5 than One Hundred Pounds. Not one of the thriftless three was strong enough to carry off the treasure of the careful one. When he had told me his story he added, "Every ploughboy in England could save £100 before he was five-and-twenty if he'd a mind to. I've done it myself, and what I did others can do." This was at a time when wages were 50 per cent, lower than they are now. But even with this example to back up my arguments I found I could do little except with children and quite young people.

The next effort towards the promotion of thrift in which I had the opportunity of sharing was the establishment and working of a Penny Bank in a country town. For four or five years I was able to take an active part in its management, and it proved successful as far as it went. But in almost all instances, certainly by far the great majority, the depositors were children or quite young people. The "grown ups" scarcely availed themselves of it at all.

The last opportunity which offered itself to me was on my appointment to the Chaplaincy of the Union Workhouse at Cuckfield, Sussex. When I had held that post for a year or so, I found myself winning a certain personal influence among the children in the schools there. I reflected that I had failed in persuading "grown ups" to become thrifty, but had succeeded with children. I knew that pauper children in workhouse schools away from parents and friends could have but little opportunities of saving, but I found they did sometimes get small sums given to them. I then thought I would try whether I could do anything with them in the way of education in thrift. I received the cordial assistance of the schoolmaster and schoolmistress for the time being, and the same hearty co-operation has been continued by their successors.

The result has surpassed my expectations. I began by giving short addresses on thrift to the children. These gradually grew into dictation lessons, in which from time to time they were examined. The teachers in succession have kindly taken Charge of the children's little savings, which as fast as they page 6 grew to be shillings were placed to their account in the Savings Bank. The result is, that nearly all the children in the schools have deposit accounts, and that a good many have gone out to service with upwards of £1 to their account. Guardians of the poor will see what this means when I add that the boys and girls who do this never come back again.

After working in this way for some time, I met with a paper in Macmillan for March, 1874, by J. G. Fitch, Esq., one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, containing an account of a similar plan which had been carried on for nearly eight years in the Elementary Schools at Ghent, in Belgium. Those who feel interested in the matter may find the whole account of it and the results in Mr. Fitch's paper, and in the pamphlets published by the Author of the scheme, Mons. Laurent, Professor of the University of Ghent. I need only now mention one or two of the successes achieved.

I find that on December 31st, 1869, three years after the commencement of the undertaking, there were 11,334 depositors on the books of the Savings Banks of that town, while at Antwerp, with about an equal population, there were only 564.

I find that on December 31st, 1873, there stood in the Savings Bank at Ghent, to the account of children only, a sum of £15,446; and lastly I find that the deposits of the children in the schools only, for the single year ending July 31st, 1874, amounted to no less than £4,000.

Surely these results are quite sufficient to recommend the introduction of the plan into every civilized country, and to win for it the hearty good will of every one who is interested in the amelioration of the condition of the working classes. But, apart from its successes as a recommendation, and apart from its social tendencies, I wish especially to recommend it most earnestly to my present audience of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses as a means of education.

As one who has had many years of experience in the education of young people of all ranks, I may perhaps be permitted to remind you that education does not consist only, nor page 7 indeed chiefly, of teaching. To my mind, true education consists far more in the training of the character than in the cultivation of the intellect. That scholar is best educated who leaves school best fitted to take his place and do his duty in his station of life. And that teacher is the most successful who does the best with the material he has to work upon. With this view it does not follow that the child that has learnt most is best educated, or that the most successful teacher is the one who turns out the most brilliant scholars.

There is a higher education, of which the true test is the battle of life, not the examination room.

This then is the great merit of the system brought to such perfection by Mons. Laurent, that he makes thrift a matter of education in the schoolroom instead of leaving people to find its benefits as best they may. Here in England, we establish Savings Banks, Post Office Banks, Penny Banks, but leave people to learn the good of using them by the light of nature; there the children are taught in the schools the right use of money, and the benefits they will experience by and by as the consequences of their present self-denial. They go forth from the schools into life with the habit of self-restraint formed, and then they continue to avail themselves of the opportunities of laying up a store against the rainy day offered them by the various forms of Savings Banks around them. They do this because they have been taught that frugality is as much a part of their duty as members of a civilized society as are habits of cleanliness, order, and decency.

Now I am afraid I must lay a charge against our whole method of English education, as far as we have any education at all on the subject of money, that it is essentially an education of extravagance. We are saturated with extravagance. We grow up from earliest childhood with the notion that the sole intention of money is to be spent. We work and toil and slave that we may have money to spend. We have a notion amongst us that the freedom with which a man scatters his money broadcast is the test of his right to the title of gentleman. page 8 We begin with it in infancy almost. We give presents of money to young children at home, and to boys and girls at school "to buy something." We never dream of giving a shilling to be put in the Savings Bank or the money box. The schoolboy goes off with his "tip" down town "to buy something." Not that he has been wanting something useful, and has been saving money till at last he has got enough to purchase the coveted article. He has got a "tip," and he must spend it. Off he goes in search of something which may gratify a passing whim, or indulge a greedy appetite. At any rate he spends the money, as he knows no other use to which to put it.

I met the other day with an extreme instance illustrating this very point. A gentleman, riding on business, had occasion to get a young working lad of 16 or 18 years of age to hold his horse; on remounting he offered the lad a shilling, telling him not to spend it, but to put it by as a nest-egg, to which to add any other windfall, against a rainy day. He was met by the reply, "Take your money back again; it's no use to me if I mayn't spend it." This exactly shews the feeling we too commonly entertain about the use of money.

Now what is the result of all this? I need not now enter into the effects upon the upper and middle classes, disastrous though they are; I will only touch now upon the effects upon the labouring classes.

First, you have Waste, Squalor, Misery. Then, as their necessary accompaniments, you have Poverty, Drink, Vice. These are followed by

Workhouses Filled;

Gin Palaces and Beer-Shops Crowded.

Gaols and Asylums Overflowing.

As a conclusion, you have Poor and Police Rates becoming insupportable to the ratepayers, and an insoluble problem to those who seek to adjust them.

Now let us for a moment assume that the children of the masses become educated in thrift, and that self-indulge ice gives place to self-restraint. Let us look forward a generation till page 9 those now entering schools leave them again, and go out into life with thrifty notions. Then you will have—

for Waste, Squalor, and Misery, Economy, Decency, and Comfort.

for Poverty, Drink and Vice, you will have Prosperity, Sobriety, and Honesty.

You will have drink-shops closed instead of crowded; unions half empty instead of full; gaols and asylums the same; and your rates adjusting themselves by the mere force of altered circumstances. I do not mean to say that you will have these results take place immediately, or perhaps ever to the universal extent we could desire. I only go so far as to say that such would be the results of successful universal education of the masses in thrifty ways, and that the adoption of such education, as far as it goes, must tend towards the realisation of these hopes. At any rate the teaching of thrift in our elementary schools is the only practical way of obtaining this desirable state of things. It is a lever with which the school teachers of the United Kingdom may effect a complete social revolution—a revolution which involves neither politics nor religion.

Of course objections will be raised which we must be prepared to answer. We shall be told that we are inculcating selfishness and miserly ways; but we may fairly reply that, as far as selfishness is concerned, at the very worst we are but proposing to substitute one form of selfishness for another. Is there no selfishness in spending all one possesses in the indulgence of the present moment, and leaving future necessities to be provided for at the cost of other people?

If I am asked which I prefer, the selfishness of the man who spends on himself and his boon companions, liberally, as he calls it, but in coarse indulgence, the money which should provide for his future wants, or the selfishness of him who, by frugality and self-restraint, provides that he and his family should be shielded from future anxiety, I reply emphatically that I prefer the latter.

As to the charge of encouraging miserly ways, I think I page 10 may fairly dismiss that by replying that we are careful to instruct the children that they are not learning to hoard money for its own sake; that we are careful to impress on them that they are urged to present self-denial for the sake of future comfort, to present economy for the sake of future prosperity, to industry and thrift now as the only road to future independence.

It may be objected that we are putting children in the way of covetousness and dishonesty. I think not. I think that as a rule young people who grow up in the knowledge, gained from their own experience, that it is in their own power, by industry and thrift, to provide for the necessities of their own social position, are less likely to be covetous or dishonest than those who think they can never acquire fairly more than enough for the day.

I cannot help feeling a regret that a taunt has been thrown out against the ministers of religion that "for some unexplained reason they do not consider the inculcation of a general habit of saving as a substantial part of practical morality within their province." It may be that they have dwelt perhaps over strongly on the command, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth," and have urged those under their influence to avoid covetousness with all its baleful train. But we have the authority of St. Paul himself for the strongest expression I know of anywhere of the positive duty of a Christian to practice thrift. He says :—"If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." With those words in our Testament it can never be said that Christianity has not declared itself in favour of thrift as a social duty, even though her ministers at any period may not have perceived how powerful a remedy against covetousness is that thrift which helps every man to have enough for his own needs.

I have now to relate as shortly as I can what has been done already in England and elsewhere in the establishment of School Banks.

In Belgium, under the personal influence of M. Laurent, page 11 the founder of these institutions, the plan has been worked for upwards of eight years with marvellous success. From that kingdom as a centre it has spread, and is still spreading into Holland, France, and Italy. It has been adopted in seventeen Departments of France, and has just been begun in the important town of Bordeaux.

In Scotland, it is being tried at two schools in Glasgow—one the school of the Highland Society, the other the elementary school at Garclochead. It has been tried at the Friends' School at Birmingham, and at the London Orphan Asylum ever since its establishment. There has been one for some time at St. Saviour's School in Liverpool, and another for twenty years at the National School at Great Ilford, in Essex. There are also Penny Banks in connection with 187 Ragged Schools in and near London. They are all doing good, and the sums deposited in them, and so saved from waste, are very large. But in none of these instances do these institutions come quite up to our idea of what a School Bank should be, except, perhaps, the two schools at Glasgow, and the London Orphan Asylum.^*

Our idea is, that thrift should be made a portion of the practical instruction of the children—a part, in fact, of the lessons of every school—that the work of the Bank should be done by the school staff, and that deposits should be receivable whenever the school is open.

The only schools where, as far as I know, this idea is entirely carried out, are those in the Union at Cuckfield, Sussex, and the boys' school in the Union at Clifton, near Bristol. We find in those schools that all the children become depositors as soon as they get any money at all to deposit; that they quite comprehend the objects put before them; that they often get nice little sums of money in the Savings Bank before they go to service; and that they stick to their places afterwards.

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I simply propose that we should adopt in England Mons. Laurent's plan, only pointing out and suggesting a remedy for one defect. In that plan a little too much is left to the individual teacher. Mons. Laurent finds that this very thing leads to very different results in different schools. There should be a text book used, to which each teacher may add such illustrations as may occur to him in the course of his lectures. It should be very simple, without being silly, and should keep to its own subject entirely.

If for a few minutes before school is opened, morning and afternoon, the teachers can attend and receive the deposits brought to them by their own classes, if these deposits are handed over weekly to the head master of the school, and by him placed monthly to the account of his school bank in some Savings Bank near at hand, the labour will be reduced to a minimum.

If the managers can in any way raise funds for the purpose, it would be very desirable to give the children rewards for good conduct and progress in the shape of money prizes, urging them to deposit the whole or at least part of the sums so given in the school bank. This plan has been tried at the London Orphan Asylum with excellent results.

In conclusion I have only to repeat that the distinctive and important feature of the plan I am so anxious to see adopted in England is the educational element. It is not enough to put Savings Banks in people's way. It is absolutely necessary in order that they should be really effective, that the children of the working classes should be educated in the use of them from their infancy. This is the kernel of the whole thing.

We must always bear in mind not only the saying of the wise man, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," but equally the converse so full of danger to our complicated system of modern society; "Let him grow up in the way that he shouldn't, and when he is old he will stick to it still."