The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-10-03
NUMBER 81.
WISE VIEWS.
A Teachers Temperate and Thought
ful Comments on school Savings
Banks.

WISE VLEWS.
A Teachers Temperate and Thought
full Comments on school Savings
Banks.
Will you permit public school teach
er to express her opinion on the subject
of school savings banks. We are long
suffering race and bear hourly, daily,
weekly, monthly, and yearly lectures on
our duties and responsibilities without
reply, and it is only once in a lifetime
that one OF us is moved, like Balaam's
donkey, to open her mouth and speak,
or its equivalent, take up her pen, and
write.
Each individual, in the station of life
unto which it has pleased God TO call
hun, has his own work to do, a work
which must be performed by himself
and which cannot be delegated to, or
assumed by, another. This fact is gen
orally recognized except in the case of
the teacher, who is expected to be able
and willing to shoulder all the burdens
other people are unwilling or incompe-
tent to bear. If burglarly is commit
ted in Troy, no one thinks of calling the
Common Council to account for the fact
that the thieves are not apprehended, for
that body was not constituted for the
purpose of watching burglars. II run
away occurs, the street sweepers are not
cautioned to be ready to prevent another
occurrence of the kind. If man goes
to sleep on the track and is mangled in
consequence, no one rushes into print
with the statistics to prove that this
would not have happened if the man
had been rightly instructed as to the
danger of choosing such sleeping place,
and a recommendation that all the city
physicians should see to it that their pa.
tients were duly warned to keep away
from the tracks. The Governor Of New
York is not called upon to do that which
the President of the United States sees
fit to leave undone, or the Legislature of
Pennsylvania to finish the work of Con-
gress. Why then should the school
teacher be expected to do the work be-
longing to parents and guardians
This subject of saving is many-sided
and far-reaching, and if the evils of
prodigality originated or ended with the
children, there might be some good ac-
complished by lessons in economy in
school. quite agree with Mr.. Remick
that ''prodigality is the mother of more
evils than avarice," but confess that
don't see how my starting a private
banking institution is going to remedy
those evils. How am |, with my imper-
feet knowledge of the children under
my charge and my almost total ignor
ance of the home life and daily sur
roundings of good many of them, to
know just which ones need to be taught
to save and which ones are already too
grasping and selfish For child nature
is human nature, and some children need
to be taught wise liberality as well as
wise frugality.
| The proper custodians of the chids'
savings are the parents, and no teacher
has the right or the desire to interfere in
any way with the home life of the child.
Her responsibilities begin and end with
the school hours. And it Is a mistake to
say that any considerable number of
children in school have parents too igno
rant or Indifferent to have the welfare
of their children at heart. During the
time l have been employed in teaching
have interviewed by good many pa
rents and have been interviewed by a
good many more, and l have never
found one who did not desire not only
that their children should obtain bet
ter education than they themselves had,
but that their children would become
better men and women than they were.
1t strikes me that it would neither be a
kind nor a wise proceeding to give these
children the idea that their parents were
not as safe repositories Of their spare
pennies as their teacher. The parents
management of their children may not
always be judicIous, indeed, it is often
very injudicious, but their errors are
errors of judgment and not of intention.
As for the children of parents who are
persistent money-wasters, they are the
children who would be least likely to
profit by any arrangement of the kind
recommended, for their parents would
be least likely to allow them money to
save, while in some cases there might be
a great temptation to dishonesty if a
spirit of rivalry In the matter of accumu'
lating money were fostered.
Children need to be taught that sue
cess in life does not depend entirely
upon dollars and cents. They need to
be taught that man is not always to
be honored because he has amassed a
great fortune. He may have done so by
very questionable methods and to en-.
courage children to emulate his exam
pie would be 10 make them anything
but model citizens. They need to be
taught that when a man comes down to
the river of death he leaves all his gold
on this side, and the only capital he
takes across the border land to COM
mence the new life with is the character
he has formed here. A soiled greenback
is lovely object only when itrepresents it
honest work honestly done.
In conclusion l heartily endorse the
position taken by the Press that the pub
lie schools should be purely democratic
institutions where the poor child and
the we'll to-do child, the barefooted child
and the child with costly shoes, the rag
ged, neglected child and the well dressed
and well cared for should meet on terms
of perfect equality. Only natures pa
tent of nobility should be recognized
there, good morals, good manners, and
a desire to make the most of their oppor-
tunties for mprovement.-Tedcher, in
Troy Press.