File:Robinson Crusoe's father - the projector of savings banks - (1910) (14776012442).jpg

Identifier: robinsoncrusoesf00gree (find matches)
Title: Robinson Crusoe's father : the projector of savings banks /
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Greene, Charles T.
Subjects: Williamsburgh Savings Bank Savings banks Banks and banking
Publisher: Brooklyn, N.Y. : Eagle Press
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: The Durst Organization

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ire, said Defoe, in arguing for this scheme, anyman to consider the present state of this Kingdom, and tellme if all the people of England, old and young, rich and poor,were to pay into one common bank four shillings per annuma head, and that four shillings duly and honestly managed,whether the overplus would not in all probability maintain allthat should be poor, and forever banish beggary and povertyout of the kingdom? The idea of Defoes pension office to many of us may atfirst seem very remote from the idea upon which a savingsbank is founded; but if we pause a moment to think, we shallsoon come to see that a savings bank is not very differentfrom such a pension office after all. Indeed, the purpose of the organizers of the New YorkInstitution for Savings, which was the first savings bank estab-lished in this country, was to banish pauperism. They calledtheir organization at first An Association for the Banishmentof Pauperism. Robinson Crusoes Father, the Projector of Savings Banks
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Of course, from our modern savings banks all the featuresof Defoes pension office scheme have been eliminated exceptthat which insures against penury and want in old age. The Germans Were the First toAdopt the Scheme. The people were not as thrifty or as saving in Defoes dayas they are now, and no one cared to take up his suggestion toestablish pension offices or friendly societies until long afterhis death. In fact, it was not until 1765 that the originalancestor of our modern savings banks was set up. TheGermans saw virtue in Defoes scheme, and so after thinkingabout it for fifty years or so, they established a savings bankin Brunswick. This one proved so successful that otherssprang up in other parts of Germany and in Switzerland;but it was not until 18 10 that a savings bank was actuallyput into operation in Great Britain. It is true that in 1797 Jeremy Bentham had revived Defoesscheme and, with some improvements, proposed the establish-ment of frugality banks; but it was not unti

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