THRIFT FOR CHILDREN

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 88, 7 November 1939, Page 4

THRIFT FOR CHILDREN

♦ MAKING MONEY OUT OF , "V. NOTHING HUNGARIAN MOVEMENT .? Mr Csanak's "how-to-makermoney-out-of-nothing" movement for. school children in Hungary has. passed;, its year of trial so successfully that the educational authorities will very probably widen its scope, says a writer in the "Observer," London. The system was originally tried in Debrecen, where Mr Csanak was employed in a bank.. Its object is to stimulate schoolboys to earn at least 10/- a year by their own efforts and put the money to their credit in a specially organised school bank. Mr Csanak held lectures on how, to turn disregarded things into money, and the system proved so popular in Debrecen that it was brought to the notice of the educational authorities. Last year, the system was tried; with the boys and girls of 30 schools in Budapest and the provinces, who earned more than 35,000 pengos. More than' 5000 children have become members, and many poor boys have earned enough to pay their school fees and .buy. their school books and clothing. A number of the children, now possess bank books of their own and 1400 pengos have been contributed to charities. The prizes offered to the scholars for the most; ingenious ways of earning money have drawn amusing confessions from the competitors.. One boy who can claim the epithet, "a terror for work sweeps the neighbours' pavements in winter, cuts wood at the festivals of pig-killings carries water for washing days, feeds animals for people at work in their fields, sweeps neighbouring courtyards on Saturdays, and carries maize and barley to the mill to be ground. For these .services he is paid in bones, newspaper, scrap-iron, copper, lead, glass, and rabbits' food. Another boy gathers the seeds of the acacia trees in autumn, makes fretwork toys in winter, and earns high wages in spring for killing caterpillars, and in summer cockchafers and cantharides. A damp, unusuable cellar has been made profitable by one boy who grows mushrooms in it. An older boy has become so expert in making supports for pot plants, after the pattern of the Tran^ sylvanian lance, that he received •■- a large order from a Budapest ' shopkeepeft*. One boy confesses to having earned 23/- by ironing suits at threepence a time. An ingenious idea is a pen-pencils and-indiarubber-lending business by which, on payment of a fraction of a farthing, a scholar can borrow what is missing for a class and avoid retribution from the schoolmaster. A boy of 13 with an inventive mind cycled round some big' estates and promised the grooms packets of tobacco in exchange for combings of horses' hair. He-states that the tobacco cost him 5/-, while he sold the horsehair for 35/-, being aware that bows made with Russian horsehair are inferior to those made with the finer strands of Hungarian horsehair. Though the schoolgirls appear to be less ingenious than the boys at making money, one little girl did good business with the crops of two old wild pear trees, which she bought for 2/- and turned into 62 litres of vinegar, which she sold for approximately £3. Collecting herbs is one of the bigger industries of the scholars, and the director of the system in each school must acquaint himself with the details of collecting, drying* and marketing the herbs. Mr Csanak hopes that the new school year will see 100 schools using his system, which hasl been christened "the students' hive" by one of its members.