of their neighbors in adjustment of crops or stock. Manufacturers
more generally try to do what their rivals are not doing. Success in
producing what is not finally wanted we call overproduction. While the
whole world is warned against this, each individual producer fails to
study as well as he might the means of avoiding it.

Prudential consumption does not properly provide for those speculative
dealings which end simply in a readjustment of wealth by gains on the one
side through losses on the other. All these imply an actual waste of
wealth and energy, whether they are exhibited in a gambling machine or a
board of trade. But there are certain great enterprises, like wonderful
inventions, which involve a prudential consumption of wealth. The wealth
consumed in developing the electric telegraph system, or in laying the
Atlantic cable, everyone would judge to be well invested. Every thought of
prudence sustains such expenditure. Yet the spirit of invention, as a mere
venture in desire to hit upon something which may chance to be wanted,
shows lack of prudence, and the world suffers by great waste of energy in
this direction. The only test of prudential consumption in provision for
the future market is in the careful study of all conditions, favorable and
unfavorable.

_Consumption for growth._--True prudence in public improvements has just
been mentioned, but such prudence has a larger range in promoting the
permanent growth of human powers and capacities. Every wise father wishes
his children to know more, be more efficient in the arts of life, and
enjoy more of true welfare than he does. Communities which show no
advancement in these respects are called dead, and decay is sure to
follow. Prudence looks after all educational interests by expending wealth
upon the means of education; not only sustaining schools, but making more
permanent provision and increasing facilities for instruction. This is not
only a means of preserving and wisely using the wealth accumulated, but a
means of increased production. Such prudence suggests large endowments for
public education, including the support of government machinery for
uniformity of education. A similar prudence sustains the philanthropic
spirit which maintains all the means of philanthropy. The endowment of
asylums for the weak and afflicted and the support of religious
institutions are prudent ways not only of caring for present welfare, but
of increasing the welfare of t