Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1900-07-12
THE ART OF SAVING.
Economy Is Hardly IN American


Virtue.
Kansas City Star: 1t is recorded
that it is the habit of the teachers of
Brussels to direct the school children
to bring with them to school such old
tin cans, pieces of tin foil, broken
metal and other scraps of waste
which they may find, and that the ac-
cumulations sell for enough to buy
clothing for large number of chill
dren who would be unable to go to
school for want of it. 1t is quite pos
sible that the average American citi-
zen will receive this statement with
doubt and class it with the story told
by Edward Everett Hale many years
ago, of the Paper Man and the Rag
Woman" two young persons of edu-
cation and refinement. who devel-
oped a talent for gathering waste pa
per and rags and who We're thus en-
abled to get married and live happily
ever afterward.
Yet, for all this incredulity the sum
of what is valueless and useless in the
world grows steadily less The util-
iZation of what was once wasted goes
steadily on. Nature gives a hint in
this regard in the indestructibility Of
matter, and in the fact that the decay
of many substances furnishes the
sustenancc for others. The difficulty
With Americans is that the art of
saving, of gathering up the frag-
nents, of making the most of every
thing, is, as it were. limited. Com
pared with the mass of the population
those who practice the art of saving
arc very few. We are prone to look
! upon the person who calls upon us for
, rags, cast-otf garments, and other
things which VIC arc apt to regard as
of little or no value-an impression
| which the dealers are careful to cnlti-
vate-as the poorest of the poor, and
almost objects of charity. They are
really engaged in great and lucra-
tive business. The world eNpends mill
4 lions on what has been once con-
denned as waste, refuse and odds and
ends. The great end and aim of mod
crn mechanical science is to save and
| utilize what was once wasted and lost.
Gold is extracted from ore that once
went on the dump, and so on through
countless industrial processes.
The art of saving, in this country, is
confined to classes-in fact to those
who are in the business. No such
preservation and utilization of all
sorts of material is known in Ameri-
can households as is common and the
rule, for instance. in France and Other
European countries. Economy is hard
ly am American virtue.
4 The American answer to the eNhor-
tation to save is: 1--WE don't have to
In a country where all the comforts
and even luXuries are more generally
distributed than in any other, we dc
need to resort to the strict economic:
of old world life. We have all we ncec
and occasionally we have corn te
burn. 1T is not the custom of this
great country to watch, and measure
and estimate and save"
1t may be, however, that all thi:
haphazard and careless theory ano
practice will sometime give way and b,
changed under the ccaseless example
and teaching of nature, which is eve
saving: which makes of the beds o
wild rushes of one era the coal o
another: which shapes of no on
knows what, or how. gold and silvc
and diamonds and hides them away il
rock or sand where man may lin,
them: which takes millions of year
in old trapper parlance, to cache
things for the final benefit of livin
creatures. 1T may be that man, learn
ing from the great teacher, nature
will some time use all that is comm
:, to him and waste nothing.