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Show School and Home by Dr. Daryl J. McCarty Executive Secretary Utah Education Association In the good old days children learned early about the virtues of thrift and saving. They would stash all their cash in little glass banks until they got enough to make a deposit in the big commercial com-mercial bank downtown, where a bespectacled clerk wearing a green eyeshade would take the money and record the transaction. Nowadays, despite the emphasis on economic education for our children, things don't work that smoothly. In the first place, inexpensive inex-pensive coin banks don't seem to be around much anymore. An expedition to a nearby Your young son tells you he's cleaned up the yard as you asked, but you notice a few minutes later that the job is only half done. ' ' I did the best I could, ' ' your sondsayslamely. Doing less than a person's best is a tragic trend of the times. Where is the potter who took an ax and shattered any substandard sub-standard products that came outofhiskiln? Where is the silver-haired gentleman who stood outside the Salt Lake City-County Building and boasted to all who would listen that he helped to lay the stond for that structure backinthel890s? shopping center recently showed that the cheapest coin bank to be found there cost $1.37. It was a tin globe map with a slot in the top for coins. Other kinds of children's banks found there were piggy banks ranging from $1.75 to $25.00a $2.49 "coffin" bank which features a skeletal hand reaching from behind a shroud to rake in the coins ;a plastic gumball machine-bank for $1.69; and a $12.50 number which has Santa Claus dropping coins down a chimney. All of this leads to the question: By the time a child saves up to buy one of thes banks, won't he or she lost some interest in saving? Of course, youngsters can squirrel their coins away in mayonnaise jars, but these containers don't present much of an obstacle to "withdrawals." "with-drawals." There's another tings. All banks and savings and loan companies don't offer the same interest package. Some of these institutions won't pay interest on savings accounts with balances les than $10.00 This might mean that a youngster would have to save that much if he or she wanted to get the experience of putting their money to work for themselves. On the other hand, some of the commercial firms encourage en-courage savings accounts for children and will pay interest on balances as small as one dollar. So when your youngster starts a savings account, "shopping' for the best deal could be an educationasl experience. As for saving coins, what this country needs is a good five-cent piggy bank. Where, oh, where is the painter pain-ter who re-did the portrait 26 times before he was satisfied withit? There's something beautiful about a healthy respect for excellence. ex-cellence. Accepting less than your ' child'sbesteffortwithoutsome reproof from you can be as crip-plingto crip-plingto that youngster aspolio. Giving a youngster license to accept less than the best can causeaparalysisof spirit. Let the boy get away with a poorly-cleaned yard, and you'll have taught him a lesson, a lesson that shoddiness is good enough. But ask yourself; Is that the kind of job you'd want him to do when he becomes a brain surgeon? The adult who teaches sons and daughters to test themselves them-selves continually to do a lesson, a task or a personal pr-ject pr-ject better every time is doing those children a favor. Sure, it's a course of action with some risks. Expect entirely en-tirely too must of a child, and the result can be an unhappy one. But if we expect too little from the younger generation, we can be steering straight for disaster. A Salt Lake music teacher tells the story of a young woman who became a remarkable pianist. The pianist said it didn't come withoutcon-flict, withoutcon-flict, though. Sheadmits thatat times she was lazy. "Every now and then my mother would give me a good whack in the sea t with a wooden spoon from the kitchen," the gifted musician says, "I appreciate ap-preciate what she did." op I |