Collateral Readings: Publications of local Board of Health. Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Chicago, 1893, volume on "Hospitals, Dispensaries, {107} and Nursing." "Instructive District Nursing," M. K. Sedgewick in "Forum," Vol. XXII, pp. 297 _sq_. "The Feeble-minded," Dr. George H. Knight in Proceedings of Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 150 _sq_. See also discussion in same volume, pp. 460 _sq_. "The Care of Epileptics," William P. Letchworth in Proceedings of Twenty-third National Conference of Charities, pp. 199 _sq_. "Industrial Education of Epileptics," Dr. William P. Spratling in Proceedings of Twenty-fourth National Conference of Charities, pp. 69 _sq_. "Destitute Convalescents: After Care of the Insane," Dr. Richard Dewey in the same, pp. 76 _sq_. See also discussion on pp. 464 _sq_. [1] "American Charities," p. 40. [2] Proceedings of the Nineteenth Conference of Charities, Denver, 1892, pp. 91 _sq_. {108} CHAPTER VII SPENDING AND SAVING There is a new school of philanthropists that are inclined to make light of thrift, and to class both industry and thrift among the merely "economic virtues." To this school must belong the settlement worker who spoke of thrift as "ordinarily rather demoralizing." [1] But another objection to thrift which has been made by settlement workers is that it was only good for the working classes "until their employers discovered that there was a margin to their employees' wages." Is it true that industry and thrift are merely economic virtues? We instinctively feel that they are something more. One has only to think of a lazy man to get an impression of something essentially contemptible and {109} cowardly. On the other hand the man that loves work and throws himself into it with energy is winning more than material rewards. The thriftless and the extravagant, whether rich or poor, are often mean and self-indulgent, lacking the first quality of the unselfish in lacking self-control. In teaching industry and thrift, therefore,--though these virtues, like others, have an unlovely side,--we may feel that we are dealing with two of the elements out of which not only character but all the social virtues are built.