The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1917-04-13
The Meaning of Thrift


A short time ago a banker was ask
ed to address a delegation of teachers,
and he chose for his subject "Thrift."
If l could I would write down for you
here the exact worts he spoke, for
they were weighty with meaning, v
cry n e I am, however, going to tell
you what he said in effect, as near as
I can recollect, for I am sure it will
help you as it did all those teachers
who heard him. I know it is always
easy for the person possessed of a
settled income of comfortable proper
tions to talk, but this man was talk
ing to teachers who, goodness knows,
are poorly enough paid, yet even they
were duly impressed.
Saving money!" he said, "is n
of the very foundation stones of
thriftiness, and every single person
who has to live by what he or she
earns ought to cultivate the habit or
the art, whichever you call it, butt
and he made this very emphatic-"it
is not the whole of the foundation. It
is not enough to save money. True
thrift is a judicious use of all the
mental, material and physical re-
serves, and to acquire the saving habit
as applied only to money is to only
half build the foundation of your
character, and therefore of your bust
ness life.
IF a mar saves money and spends
it in drink, or a woman pinches and
saves and boards up her earnings, and
then spends her nights in cabarets to
the unsettling of her health and mind,
they are not being thrifty, are they?
What is necessary to learn is, not how
to save, but how to spend wisely"
Isn't that true?
ut is quite the custom for persons
in ordinary circumstances to rail at
the rich for what they think is ex-
travagance-that is, for wearing ex-
pensive clothes, giving sumptuous
dinners, and living l%uxuriously gener-
ally; but suppose these people hoard
ed their money, spending it only for
the veriest necessities, or spent it as if
they were people in moderate circum.
stances, would anyone be benefited ex-
cept the stockholders Of the savings
banks? Then what would become OF
all the smaller dressmakers and MILL
ners and all the others who make
livelihood off the seeming extrava.
gances of these rich people,
"Nowadays it is not so much {
a question of how to save as it is ont
of how to spend that you have t.
concern yourself with. How to spent
judiciously-there's the problem. Thi'
is what we call personal economics
and it is one of the big questions O.
the day all over the world. 1t apple
to you as much as to anyone, whethe
YOU are earning ten dollars a day o
ten thousand a year.
"My advice to you is to live just a
we'll as you honestly a afford. Tha
Z is, live within your income whateve
, it is. Whatever you do, don't run int
debt. Debt is one of the working
lgirl's worst enemies, and there
: rarely an excuse if she starts in t
' court it.
: u am assuming that you are carr
u ing a living wage; if you are not, tn
: question is not one on which any Out
slider should presume to give advice
y for in that case, if l were to sa
) Save something each week. you woul
perhaps cut down something on tf
:. already meager allowance for foo
for all girls argue, and quite right
n too, that however they stint then
n u selves on food their pride is not hur
y while if they economize on dress son
one might know.
le However, to the others l say, new
:" spend more than you earn, which
+ other words means do not borrow n
'e run into debt. There are any numb