managers

is a highly important service to the community for the girls who are to become the managers of the households to learn the lesson of saving. In the pioneer days Women every girl learned at home the details of house are the management. In modern life, especially in of the cities, it is not always so. It is now recognized household that, in the attempts to improve the conditions of life in the slums of a city, one of the first things to do is to teach the people who live there how to save in their households, in order to get the best results from what they have.

the school

In recent years the school has been assuming some of the responsibility for the education of the girls in domestic science. Courses in cooking and sewing are The responoffered in an increasingly large number of pub- sibility of lic and private schools. Universities are training young women to become teachers of domestic science. It is being recognized, as it should be, that the skillful management of a household is as useful and honorable a service to the community as the management of a business.

The successful business man always tries to avoid waste. By introducing smoke consumers, or by employing skillful stokers, he converts the smoke of his furnaces Waste in into steam power instead of pouring it out in business clouds over the community. In a well-managed sawmill not only is the body of the logs sawed into lumber, but the waste from this process is made into tool handles, chair rounds, and other small articles. The pieces of wood that are too small for manufacturing purposes may be sold in cities for kindling. Even the sawdust is put to various uses. When the refining of petroleum oil was first begun, there was a great deal of waste product. From this former waste there are now produced many valuable by

products, such as paraffin, vaseline, and dyestuffs. The by-products of a manufacturing process are sometimes more valuable than the main product.

Saving money does not mean hoarding it. He who hoards is really wasteful, for the money that he hoards might be invested in such a way that it would

Saving

is not hoarding

produce more wealth. He might buy machinery with it for manufacturing purposes; he might build houses with it to rent; he might buy a stock of goods with it, and sell them at profit; or he might lend the money to others who wish the use of it and receive interest.

It is the duty of every person to save by investing the surplus of his earnings, so far as he is able to do so. In the first place, he should endeavor to put it beSaving by investment yond a possibility that he shall ever be a burden is a duty on others for his support, or for the support of his family, in time of sickness, old age, or lack of employment. In the second place, it is through the investment of savings that productive industries are maintained, and the wealth of the community is increased. The man who

saves by investment supplies the community with factories, machinery, railways, and other forms of capital. He also becomes an employer of labor. He thus contributes to the prosperity of the community.

Wastefulness is often found in the management of the community's business by government. It is seen in many Waste in forms. Through a false idea of economy imgovernment provements that would result in real economy are not made: as when roads or streets are allowed to remain unimproved, thus causing an unnecessary expense in transportation. For lack of funds pavements that have been built at great expense are allowed to go without repair from year to year until the whole work has to be done

over again; or the equipment of a fire department may be allowed to deteriorate, while the loss from fires increases.

Wastefulness often results from inefficient service on the part of employees of the government. Salaries are sometimes paid to men who are incompetent, and who hold their positions only through political favoritism. Sometimes costly improvements are undertaken when they are not really necessary, or when something less costly would serve equally well, in order to give employment to political favorites. Franchises are sometimes given for the use of public highways without due compensation to the community. These are only a few of the possible ways in which waste may occur in the government of a community. It is found not only in local government, but also in state and national governments.

responsible

govern

Wastefulness in government may often be attributed to the incompetence of officials, sometimes to their dishonesty. It is often due to too little sense of re- Who is sponsibility on their part for the wise expenditure for an of money that belongs to the public; for "the economical public" means to them nobody in particular. ment? But after all, wastefulness in the government of the community is largely the fault of the citizens themselves. They are inclined to place the responsibility for unwise expenditures and other forms of wastefulness upon the officers of government, unmindful of the fact that it is their own business that is being mismanaged. Each citizen owes it to himself and to the community to use every means at his command to secure an economical administration of the affairs of his community, so that the investments of citizens in the community will bring the largest possible returns.

FOR INVESTIGATION

1. What are some of the ways in which you are wasteful?

2. What are some ways of preventing waste in your household? 3. Investigate some factory or business establishment to find out how waste is avoided.

4. Visit a gas factory and find out what by-products of value result from the manufacture of gas.

5. What other industries do you know in which there are useful byproducts?

6. What are some of the ways in which men save by investment? Show how each of these methods of investment benefits the community.

7. Mention some ways in which waste occurs in the government of your community. How would you suggest that these wastes be avoided?

REFERENCES

"The Problem of Waste," Independent, 55: 1324. "A Century of Waste," Independent, 52: 2400.

"The Utilization of Wastes," Engineering Magazine, 26: 118. "The Wastes of a Great City," Scribner's Magazine, 34: 387. Goodrich, "The Economic Disposal of a Town's Retuse."

CHAPTER XIV

HOW THE COMMUNITY AIDS THE CITIZEN IN TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION

communi

You will recall that in seeking a site for the community described in the first chapter, the exploring committee was to notice whether there were roads or canals near Community by. The very nature of a community implies life implies that there must be communication, for without cation it there could be no way of acting together. One of the obstacles in the way of united action among the thirteen American colonies was the absence of good roads connecting them. The trip from New York to Boston in those times required six days. A traveler tells us of spending a month in making the journey from New York to Washington at a little later time.. Under such conditions it is not strange that it was difficult to develop a spirit of union among the colonies.

tion

In the early part of the last century it cost $125 to haul a ton of goods from Philadelphia to Pittsburg by wagon, the only means of transportation. It cost $2.50 Cost of to carry a bushel of salt three hundred miles. transportaWheat could not profitably be transported by wagon more than one hundred and fifty miles, because it could not be sold at a price to cover the cost of transportation. When the cost of transportation was so great, the commonest articles of household use to-day were luxuries which the people could not afford. The cause of all this was excessively bad roads.