The Use of Money
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM
- Author:
Kirkpatrick. (Childhood and Youth Series.
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1915. Pp. x+226.
Professor Kirkpatrick’s book, he tells us, “is the outcome of experience, observation, and investigation as a parent, citizen, and an educator… . Part 1 being intended especially for parents and Part II for teachers.”
Part I, Home Training, includes chapters on (I) Importance of financial training, (II) Development of ideas of money, (III) The usual financial training of children, (IV) Financial joys and sorrows, (V) Spending money, (VI) Getting money by irregular gifts, (VII) Regular allowances, (VIII) Earning money, (IX) Business dealings of children, (X) Saving money, (XI) Financial responsibilities of children, (XII) Buying clothes, (XIII) Keeping accounts, (XIV) Financial communism in the home. Part II, Training outside the Home, includes (XV) Institutions for children’s savings, (XVI) School arithmetic and financial training, (XVII) Arithmetic with a motive, (XVIII) Incidental and intentional financial training in school affairs, (XIX) Home and community life in financial training, and lastly (XX) How Uncle Sam is giving his boys and girls financial training.
There is a brief bibliography, and an appendix which calls for particular mention. It is a chapter from that most delightful of books, “My Little Boy,” by Carl Ewald, translated from the Danish by A. T. de Mattos. Surely no one else has ever had so keen and humorous an insight into the perceptions and imagination of a child, or so gentle a skill in turning them to account for the child’s development.
As Professor Kirkpatrick observes, “The need for financial training is increasing. Money has a steadily growing importance in life as civilization progresses. Money may quickly procure the necessities?food, fuel, and clothing. It may give us any kind of scenery or climate we prefer. It can surround us with works of art and literature and give us leisure to enjoy them. It can procure for us any sort of amusement we may desire, and, above all, it can to a considerable extent determine our companions.” But does he mean to imply that the determination of one’s companions by money is an unmixed blessing? To all teachers and parents who would gladly train their children in the discreet use of money, but who do not possess the rare sympathy and ingenuity of Carl Ewald, Professor Kirkpatrick’s admirable book can be recommended as lucid and suggestive. A. T.
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