And, indeed, all that the rich could do to elevate the poor could hardly equal the advantage that would be gained by the poor themselves, if they could thoroughly subdue that one vice of drunkenness, the most wasteful of all the vices.
"In the living of the poor (as indeed of all of us) there are two things to be considered; how to get money, and how to spend it.

Now, I believe, the experience of employers will bear me out in saying, that it is frequently found that the man with 20s.

a week does not live more comfortably, or save more, than the man with 14s.,--the families of the two men being the same in number and general circumstances.

It is probable that unless he have a good deal of prudence and thought, the man who gets at all more than the average of his class does not know what to do with it, or only finds in it a means superior to that which his fellows possess of satisfying his appetite for drinking." Notwithstanding, however, the discouraging circumstances to which we have referred, we must believe that in course of time, as men's nature becomes improved by education--secular, moral, and religious--they may be induced to make a better use of their means, by considerations of prudence, forethought, and parental responsibility.

A German writer speaks of the education given to a child as _a capital_--equivalent to a store of money--placed at its disposal by the parent.