unt of total assets, with Ohio a close second, and New Jersey
third (the ranking first in proportion to population). Associations
of this type have been hardly second in importance in America to the
savings banks as institutions for savings for persons of moderate
means. The number of their members (nearly 3,000,000) is about
one-fourth of that of savings bank depositors, and the amount of
their assets (1-1/4 billion dollars) is about one-fourth that of the
reported savings banks. But their relative influence in educating and
encouraging to thrift is doubtless much greater than these figures
indicate. There are more than three times as many of them as of
reported savings banks, their management is much more democratic than
is that of the banks, and many of their members attend and participate
in the meetings and understand how they are conducted. Moreover, the
savings made through these associations are constantly passing on into
the houses that are fully paid for, and which continue to yield their
incomes to their owners. Each year these associations collect from
their members as dues and in repayment of loans (made to build houses)
the sum of over half a billion dollars, which is twice as much as the
annual increase in the deposits of the reported savings banks.[12]

Sec. 11. #The main features.# A building and loan association is
organized by a group of persons in a neighborhood, uniting to form a
corporation under the laws of the state, every member to subscribe
for one or more shares. The officers elected all serve without pay
excepting the secretary-treasurer, who receives a small fee for his
services. All official meetings are open to all members. The shares
vary in denomination from $25 to $200; the larger figure being common
under the serial plan and $100 being usual under the continuous (or
permanent) plan, described below. Whenever there is a sufficient
sum it is loaned to one of the members for the purpose of building a
house. The borrower must subscribe for shares to the par value of his
loan.

The receipts of the association are of several kinds.

(a) Interest is received from members, usually at the rate of 6
per cent, and from banks at a lower rate on the small working cash
balances kept on deposit. Usually the loans made are large enough to
cover a large proportion of the cost of the house, but the land on
which the house stands must be free from all incumbrance, and its
value gives a margin of safet