The Thrift of Burns, Scott, and Gladstone

Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish your children to be thrifty, I would beg of you to impress upon them the criminality of waste. (Applause.) What is the example we learn from great men in this respect? I take three foremost men of their countries. I take Washington, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon—Washington, a thrifty man of business as ever lived; Frederick the Great more than thrifty; Napoleon, thrifty in detail to the utmost possible extent And then I take three other names, three names familiar to Scotsmen—three names of great Scotsmen, and there I find more difficulty. I take Burns, and Walter Scott, and Gladstone. Of course the toughest nut to crack is Burns. We worshippers of Burns are not accustomed to think page 14 of him as thrifty, and, undoubtedly from some points of view he was not thrifty, though he had uncommonly little to be thrifty upon. But no one could see the enormous output of work that Burns did without seeing that he must have had a great thrift of time, which is perhaps the most important form in which we can be thrifty. But I will abandon Burns as a difficult subject (Laughter.) Walter Scott, as we know, died ruined. But Walter Scott was eminently thrifty. The trouble of Walter Scott was that he was ambitious, and endeavoured to found too large a structure on his labour and his thrift, went into business which he did not understand, and, therefore, the whole structure toppled over. Now, of Mr. Gladstone I can speak with personal knowledge. There was no man so careful and thrifty in his expenditure, combined with great generosity, and great liberality. (Applause.) No one who ever saw that great man at work could believe that it was anything but a sin to waste anything, more especially time. (Applause.)