ws and drives out all heart for
productive effort.

The industrious habit coupled with economy is called thrift. It is not
parsimony or unwillingness to give, but a disposition to save. Our
Lord, who was the prince of givers and inculcated unlimited giving
among his followers, gave a lesson in thrift when he said after his
miracle, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost."

Enforced industry and economy is not thrift. When by low wages or
grinding conditions the necessities of life are with difficulty
secured, the very opposite disposition may be cultivated. When the
external restraints are removed, the wildest extravagance may be
indulged in. This is sometimes given as an excuse for low, grinding
wages; that "the workmen and their wives have no idea of saving;" that
higher wages would be wasted in foolish extravagance.

No one in normal conditions will be wasteful of that which has cost
him hard labor. His care for it will naturally be in proportion to the
effort that was necessary to secure it. Those who waste the wealth of
the world are not those who by the sweat of their faces have produced
it. The habit of thrift comes from the knowledge of the value of a
thing, learned by earning it. Only that which comes without effort
will be spent without thought. Those who have livings secured from the
increase or interest of "productive" capital, having no need of
industry, are wholly occupied with the spending; but in spending only,
the value of the thing spent is not appreciated, the habit of
extravagance grows and they become the idlers and the spendthrifts of
the world.

2. It prevents open and frank honesty. When the thought is turned to
an endeavor to secure a dollar that is not earned, there is
secretiveness of purpose and inward guile. No person doing business on
borrowed capital advertises the number and amount of his loans nor
does he welcome inquiry by others. In a column of advertisements by
money lenders in a newspaper lying on this table every one promises
"privacy" or "no publicity." No one can be so open and frank as the
one who earns every dollar that he receives or seeks.

The possibility of speculation is ruinous. The first step in the wreck
of integrity in a young man's character is when he becomes absorbed in
some scheme by which he can secure gain without honestly earning it.
Lotteries are outlaws not only because they defraud but they undermine
integrity and honest industry.

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