depositors and learned how to draw and deposit, to count readily, to
make change, to make out checks, to compute interest, discount bills,
buy drafts, etc., etc.
Once Mr. Dalton asked Joyce, with that cynicism which belonged to him,
"Why do you have the poor little beggars taught this sort of business?
That they may learn to value the money they may never possess?" and she
had flashed around upon him with the answer,
"They will possess it! Do you for an instant believe our scholars are to
be kept in bondage to one solitary trade? They will not all be
glass-blowers, I can promise you."
In fact, already these little financiers were substituting real money
for the spurious pretense, and Saturday mornings they came to deposit
their penny savings in the bank kept by their teacher, or to draw, with
interest, their savings of weeks. In order to encourage frugality, this
interest was compounded, after the principal had been left in bank for
three months, silver to be returned where only copper had been
deposited. Behind all this stood Joyce's useful millions and the
Madame's guiding hand.
It was not a great while before the mothers began to come in with their
petty savings, also, and after a long talk with Mr. Barrington, one day,
a real banking institution was incorporated, with the stock issued in
dollar shares. Mr. Barrington, as president, headed the list of
stockholders with a hundred, Miss Lavillotte following with
seventy-five, while Mr. Dalton, Madame Bonnivel, and Larry Driscoll were
all down for fifty, or less.
It was a delightful little bank, where pennies stood for dollars, where
everyone had confidence in everybody else, where no other banks could
make or break, and where the assets were so in excess of the liabilities
that it could not be touched by panic. Every three months there was to
be a change of clerks, though the officers were retained. This was to
give each scholar an opportunity of learning all the practical routine
of a bank, also, to offer facilities for the handling and counting of
money.
I have enlarged upon the bank more than its relative importance
warrants. Really, the domestic economy classes were given greater
prominence in the school, and the changes these well-taught children
gradually introduced into their sordid home life were many and
excellent.
Mother Flaherty was so electrified over the tin of light, sweet rolls
her little grand-daughter made for supper, one evening, th
|