APRIL: THRIFT AND INDUSTRY For the Teacher: GOOD WORK JOHN RUSKIN A man or woman in public or in private life, who ever works only for the sake of the reward that comes for the work will in the long run do poor work always. I do not care where the work is, the man or woman who does work worth doing is the man or woman who lives, breathes, and sleeps that work; with whom it is ever present in his or her soul; whose ambition is to do it well and feel rewarded by the thought of having done it well. That man, that woman, puts the whole country under an obligation. For the Class: Nothing is good work except the best that one is capable of. Suggestions for morning talks Thrift Read; "L'Envoi," to "Life's Handicap," Rudyard Kipling, Songs from Books. Doubleday, Page & Co. The wise are careful in the use of time and money. Read "Spare Moments" (page 275), in White's School Management (American Book Co.), to show what great things may be accomplished with odds and ends of time. Whenever you earn money or have money given to you, you should not spend it thoughtlessly for toys or candy or anything you happen to see. You should set it aside and add to it until you can buy something of true value, a book, a pair of skates, a flower for your mother, a present for your little brother, a new hat, or a pair of boots for yourself. As soon as you are earning money regularly, you should save a part of your earnings, even though it be a very small amount. To save in early life means independence and comfort in old age.1 Keep your desires simple. Do not think you must have everything that another boy or girl has. Read "The Fortune," by Laura E. Richards, from The Golden Windows (Little, Brown & Co.). Do not borrow money from other children. Do not bet or gamble. Be willing to pay a fair price for what you buy. It is mean to try to get something for nothing. Never save money that is actually needed by you or your family for food, clothing, or other necessities of life. To save under such circumstances is hoarding. This is wrong. Read: "Waste Not, Want Not," Maria Edgeworth, R.L.S. No. 44. Houghton Mifflin Co. "The Whistle," Benjamin Franklin, from Poor Richard's Almanac and Other Papers, R.L.S. No. 21. Houghton Mifflin Co. Industry "Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness." CARLYLE. Some men who have won this blessing are: Luther Burbank, who developed ten thousand seedlings to secure a single flower; Charles Darwin, who toiled eighteen 1 N.B. The teacher may start the class in penny-saving. A circular is issued by the Massachusetts Bank Commission instructing teachers how to guide children in this direction. years before publishing the results of his experiments, although much of the time he could work but fifteen minutes consecutively; Louis Pasteur, who gave years of his life and even risked his health to discover the nature of germs; Louis Agassiz, who risked his eyesight and his life in the study of fossils and glaciers; Francis Parkman, who, though handicapped by inability to use his eyes, made authoritative histories of Indian and Canadian life. The happiest men are those who can "toil terribly" to accomplish good for themselves and their fellowmen. Such men are apt to be good men, for they have no time to spend in idleness or self-indulgence. The boy or girl who wishes to become a useful citizen may begin now. He must prepare his lessons thoroughly and steadily; do his home tasks faithfully and regularly; spend his playtime in hard outdoor games; cultivate a hobby, stamps, minerals, an herbarium, an aquarium, etc.; respect all honest labor and laborers; shun idleness as he would poison; Remember the old saying, "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." Remember that every day counts: it is sustained effort that is most important. Read: "How Johnny Bought a Sewing Machine," by Horatio Alger, Jr., in Our Young Folks, vol. I, 1866. Ticknor & Fields. FIVE CENTS A DAY 1 ANONYMOUS The cumulative power of money is a fact not very generally appreciated. There are few men living at the 1 From Select Stories and Quotations. A. Flanagan Co., Chicago, Ill. age of seventy-five, hanging on to existence by some slender employment, or pensioners, it may be, on the bounty of kindred or friends, but might by exercising the smallest particle of thrift, rigidly adhered to in the past, have set aside a respectable sum which would materially help them maintain their independence in their old age. Let us take the small sum of five cents which we daily pay to have our boots blackened, to ride in a car the distance we are able to walk, or to procure a bad cigar we are better without, and see what its value is in the course of years. We will suppose a boy of fifteen, by blacking his own boots, or saving his cherished cigarette, puts by five cents a day. In one year he saves $18.35, which, being banked, bears interest at the rate of five per cent per annum, compounded semi-yearly. On this basis, when our thrifty youth reaches the age of sixty-five, having set his five cents per day religiously aside during fifty years, the result is surprising. He has accumulated no less a sum than $3983.18. A scrutiny of the progress of this result is interesting. At the age of thirty our hero has $395; at forty, $877; at fifty, $1667; at sixty, $2962. After fifteen years' saving his annual interest more than equals his original principal; in twenty-five years it is more than double; in thirty-five years it is four times as much; in forty-five years it is eight times as much as the annual amount he puts by. The actual cash amount saved in fifty years is $912.50, the difference between that and the grand total of $3893.18 - namely, $2970.68 is accumulated interest. What a magnificent premium for the minimum of thrift that can well be represented in figures! MAY: HEROES OF PEACE For the Teacher: COURAGE IN EVERYDAY LIFE EDWIN D. MEAD The battle-field has been the theater of infinite faithfulness, self-sacrifice, and service, of the highest heroism often as well as the deepest horror. But the esteem and glorification of the soldier has been out of all proportion to the honor paid the heroes of other fields than the battle-field whose service, done to no accompaniment of fife and drum or waving banners, often imposed a greater risk, demanded a far higher courage, and had a vastly nobler and more useful end. . . . The soldier who risks his life to save the State, or at the State's command, is no more truly a public servant, nor the exponent or agent of patriotism, than the statesman or the teacher; and the policeman, the engineer, the fireman, and the surfman, faithful and firm at their dangerous posts, place us under equal obligation and deserve as well at our hands. Suggestions for morning talks Give accounts of Dr. Grenfell and his medical work "down North on the Labrador"; of Booker T. Washington's struggles to educate and uplift his race; of Dr. Samuel G. Howe's work with the blind and deaf; of Clara Barton and the Red Cross Society. All these and many more are "patriots in higher spheres and with higher tools than the man with the gun." These persons are world-renowned, but there are many obscure heroes whose deeds have precisely the same |
