; when the panic was
over, they "let out." But the end of one year found them precisely
where they were at the close of the previous year, unless they were
deeper in debt.

It was in this atmosphere of prodigal expenditure and culpable waste
that I was to practise thrift: a fundamental in life! And it is into
this atmosphere that the foreign-born comes now, with every inducement
to spend and no encouragement to save. For as it was in the days of my
boyhood, so it is to-day--only worse. One need only go over the
experiences of the past two years, to compare the receipts of merchants
who cater to the working-classes and the statements of savings-banks
throughout the country, to read the story of how the foreign-born are
learning the habit of criminal wastefulness as taught them by the
American.

Is it any wonder, then, that in this, one of the essentials in life and
in all success, America fell short with me, as it is continuing to fall
short with every foreign-born who comes to its shores?

As a Dutch boy, one of the cardinal truths taught me was that whatever
was worth doing was worth doing well: that next to honesty come
thoroughness as a factor in success. It was not enough that anything
should be done: it was not done at all if it was not done well. I came
to America to be taught exactly the opposite. The two infernal
Americanisms "That's good enough" and "That will do" were early taught
me, together with the maxim of quantity rather than quality.

It was not the boy at school who could write the words in his copy-book
best who received the praise of the teacher; it was the boy who could
write the largest number of words in a given time. The acid test in
arithmetic was not the mastery of the method, but the number of minutes
required to work out an example. If a boy abbreviated the month
January to "Jan." and the word Company to "Co." he received a hundred
per cent mark, as did the boy who spelled out the words and who could
not make the teacher see that "Co." did not spell "Company."

As I grew into young manhood, and went into business, I found on every
hand that quantity counted for more than quality. The emphasis was
almost always placed on how much work one could do in a day, rather
than upon how well the work was done. Thoroughness was at a discount
on every hand; production at a premium. It made no difference in what
direction I went, the result was the same: the cry was always for
quantity