_Consumption for growth._—True prudence in public improvements has just been mentioned, but such prudence has a larger range in promoting the permanent growth of human powers and capacities. Every wise father wishes his children to know more, be more efficient in the arts of life, and enjoy more of true welfare than he does. Communities which show no advancement in these respects are called dead, and decay is sure to follow. Prudence looks after all educational interests by expending wealth upon the means of education; not only sustaining schools, but making more permanent provision and increasing facilities for instruction. This is not only a means of preserving and wisely using the wealth accumulated, but a means of increased production. Such prudence suggests large endowments for public education, including the support of government machinery for uniformity of education. A similar prudence sustains the philanthropic spirit which maintains all the means of philanthropy. The endowment of asylums for the weak and afflicted and the support of religious institutions are prudent ways not only of caring for present welfare, but of increasing the welfare of the future. The next generation will be stronger and happier for the prudent foresight of this generation in overcoming obstacles to health and wisdom and virtue. To leave wealth thus invested is far better for successors than to leave it in form for ready consumption upon temporary wants. Thus all prudent consumption of wealth has for its basis the genuine welfare of a continuous society of human beings subject to improvement. Any forming community looks surely to future welfare when it invests wealth in good homes, good schools and good churches. Chapter XXV. Imprudent Consumption. _Society interested in imprudence._—This fact, that the wealth of each generation is so largely dependent upon the prudence of the preceding, emphasizes the importance of public sentiment in favor of prudential consumption. Public criticism naturally attacks the most noticeable failures of prudence, and it therefore seems worth while to consider some of those imprudent forms of consumption which society may seek to prevent. It is also proper to consider the ways in which society may act for prevention of imprudence. _Luxurious consumption._—The question of luxury in the same society with extreme poverty is always prominent. Luxury is supposed to be extravagant expenditure in meeting individual wants. Though such wants may be real and legitimate, lavish expenditure by any portion of a community seems at first sight a trespass upon common welfare. Some have considered that person wanting in good will to his fellows who expends upon his own comfort more than his neighbors can afford. Others define luxury to be expenditure for living above the average expenditure in the whole community. Still others regard any expenditure a luxury which is not needed to maintain physical powers.