THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2170, 17 December 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1875.

" The Savings Bank in the School" is ;the title of a pamphlet now going the round of the New Zealand newspapers, and the object of the pamphlet is to inculcate economical and saving principles in the minds of children by inducing them to say we say not hoard—such sums of money as they may, as children, possess. The idea of having savings banks in schools was, according to the author of the pamphlet, started in- the Belgian schools at Ghent by Professor Laurent, with the result, as given by the statistics of 1873, that out of 15,392 children attending schools to which the system was applied, no less than 13,032 became depositors of £18,522 or about 35 francs— nearly thirty shillings—each. This plan which is reckoned, it seems, eminently satisfactory in Ghent, Mr J. G. Fitch, one. of her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, has made himself thoroughly conservant with, and has in an article contributed to Macmillan's Magazine urged its adoption in England. The result has been j that the writer of the pamphlet in question has further adapted Mr Fitch's adopted views to suit the requirements of this colony, and now urges the formation of ' savings banks in the schools of New Zealand. The plan adopted' by Mr Laurent in Ghent has nothing very startling to recommend it in the way of novelty, the system being much the same as that used in. village coal clubs and clothing clubs at home. Each child on becoming a depositor receives a card; on which is written the amount of his deposit, which may be from a centime (a tenth part of a penny!) upwards. When these centimes amount to a franc the depositor receives a bank-book, and an account is opened.in j his or her name with the state Savings ! Bank, which allows interest at three per cent. This is the whole plan proposed, and this plan will,.the author thinks, be productive of great results in after life if employed to any extent among the schools of this colony. Of course the usual number of phrases and maxims relative to the value of saving and the naughtiness of spendthrifts are strung together for the benefit of the parent and teacher as well as the pupil and child; and there , can be no doubt but that habits of prudence and forethought are in themselves most excellent and valuable, and cannot be too early judiciously inculcated. The danger is of overdoing it, and instead of forming a careful, provident, and far-seeing as well as far-thinking man, producing in his stead what Dickens has made Kalph Nickleby so aply describe himself " a niggardly old hunks," miserly of his own savings, greedy of the savings of his neighbour, striving to over-reach in his bargains for the sake of his useless—because unused—hoard; mean, petty, covetous and grasping ; his whole soul bent on the acquisition of money he will only ; Hoard for another to spend. Of this there iis ( oniy .'too much danger, if the system of :. excessive taking care of every small sum a child may have be overduiy insisted upon. The mind of, a child is not so nicely balanced as to enable him always to distinguish where proper . economy ceases and meanness steps in; it -is obviously impossible for his teacher or parent to guide him in the saving or spending of ever/ centime he may get, j and, if he be taught to keep all and spend none, there is great fear lest he should become a miser, and-—as the name miser implies — consequently miserable. Of

course every system is open to abuse, and we are well aware that it is no argument against Professor Laurent, Mr J. G. Fitch, or the author of " The Savings Bank in the School," simply to tell them that their system can,be abused. The same may be said of nearly every thing, however good and wise it be per se, but the argument here lies in the likelihood there is that it will be abused, and this we think is yery great. Boys as well as men vary so much in disposition and character that one broad rule for their direction cannot with safety be laid down, and while the natural generosity of one boy's character must be restrained, lest in after life !it develop into prodigality, the inherent penuriousness of another must be eradicated lest it at some future time descend into meanness. Thus much we are prepared to admit, that it would at least be as well if these savings banks existed, and if their existence and advantages were brought prominently before the notice of the young; but to attempt to make boys forego the advantages which, are to be gained by a proper participation in all manly games; to withold from them the means of doing a kind or generous action simply that they may have, when more advanced in life, some few shillings more in tlieir pockets than they otherwise would have, is to attempt to foster instead of the race of Englishmen of which we feel so proud and talk so much, a nerveless, meanspirited, money-grubbing race, as contemptible in mind as enfeebled in powers of body. If the young like to save tlieir money, by all means let them save it, and let them have the means of doing so profitably to themselves; but in the name of all that is true and honest let them not be taught that the acquisition of money, and the saving of money are the chief duties they were sent on this earth to perform, as is too likely to be the case if parents and guardians enquire too closely into how each shilling they give to their children is spent. Prudence is not taught by hoarding money which a boy would gladly spend if he could; and if compulsory saving is enforced it is but too apt to degenerate into one of two extremes, either into, as we have said, a meanness which is to be accursed, or a profuseness which, when a boy becomes a young man and finds himself no longer bound by tutors or governors, he is very apt to indulge in from having been unduly restrained in his youth. As regards the latter part of the pamphlet, the general utility of benefit societies, the desirability there is of encouraging thrift in the working classes — and we add of other classes too—and the the ways and means whereby such thrift may be encouraged, we entirely concur. All provision made for oneself to prevent oneself in the case of illness' from becoming chargeable or depencientr-lfpon others, is laudable and should be encouraged; but when the provision is made, not for oneself but for others—not to prevent oneself becoming dependent, but to prevent others dependent on us from becoming dependent on others than ourselves, the motive which causes such provision to be made is one of the highest and most laudable which can animate a man, and to practise this in actual life ought to be the aim of everyone amongst us from his schooldays Upwards.