ings is to send volunteer collectors
among the poor, who will visit certain families weekly, and collect the
five and ten cent pieces until enough has been saved to open a bank
account. This work may be combined with friendly visiting, though the
collector must visit at regular intervals, and in many cases it is
better for the friendly visitor to visit at irregular intervals. One
visitor always leaves a small bank with her family when she goes away
in summer, and the unlocking of this on her return has become a family
ceremony.

Saving for fuel becomes an admirable object lesson, when it is used to
establish the saving habit and not allowed to stop with the mere
purchase. During the summer, families can be encouraged to put by
small sums weekly, and, instead of buying coal in small quantities at
very high prices during the winter, can save more than half the cost by
buying a ton or more early in the season.

In teaching thrift in a careless and shiftless {125} home, we can get
many valuable suggestions from more thrifty families in the same
neighborhood, or with the same income. To effectively advise about
expenditure, one must know the family budget of receipts and
expenditures, and often this is more than the family knows. Learning
to take note of the items is the first lesson in thrift. The most
important thing, however, is our own attitude of mind. "We must not
get into the habit of saying, 'Poor things; they can do nothing.' We
should rid ourselves of the habit of treating them, not as men and
women, people who can look after themselves with strength in their
muscles and brain-power in their heads, but as animals whom we allow to
live in society along with ourselves, taking for granted that they are
deprived of, or cannot exert, those faculties which go to make up the
strength and fibre of men and women. I assure you, those who are
inclined to take a sentimental turn have great temptations put before
them to treat the poor as if they were dependent animals." [7]

{126}

Collateral Readings: "The Development of Thrift," Miss Mary Willcox
Brown. "The Standard of Life," Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, especially the
essay on "The Burden of Small Debts." Annual Reports of the
Workingmen's Loan Association, Boston; the Provident Loan Association,
New York; and the Provident Loan Company, Buffalo. For stamp savings,
see reports of New York Charity Organization Society (Committee on
Penny Provident Fund).