WHY I BELIEVE IN POVERTY
The Riverside Uplift Series
———
WHY I BELIEVE IN POVERTY. By Edward Bok,
THE AMATEUR SPIRIT, By Bliss Perry.
THE GLORY OF THE IMPERFECT, By George H, Palmer.
SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH. By George H. Palmer.
TRADES AND PROFESSIONS. By George H. Palmer.
THE CULTIVATED MAN. By Charles W. Eliot.
WHITHER? Anonymous.
CALM YOURSELF. By George L. Walton.
Each, 50 cents, net.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston and New York
WHY I BELIEVE IN
POVERTY
AS THE RICHEST EXPERIENCE
THAT CAN COME TO A BOY
BY
EDWARD BOK
BOSTON AND HEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
MDCCCCXV
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY EDWARD BOK
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1915
A FOREWORD
THE article in this little book was published in The Ladies’ HomeJournal for April, 1915. Much to the surprise of the author, the callfor copies was so insistent as to exhaust the edition of the magazinecontaining it. As the demand did not appear to be supplied, the articleis now reprinted in this form. It is sent out with the hope of theauthor that it may still further fulfill its mission of giving thestimulant of encouragement wherever it is needed.
E. B.
October
Nineteen hundred and fifteen
WHY I BELIEVE IN POVERTY
AS THE RICHEST EXPERIENCE THAT CAN COME TO A BOY
I MAKE my living trying to edit the “Ladies’ Home Journal.” And becausethe public has been most generous in its acceptance of that periodical,a share of that success has logically come to me. Hence a number of myvery good readers cherish an opinion that often I have been tempted tocorrect, a temptation to which I now yield. My correspondents expressthe conviction variously, but this extract from a letter is a fairsample:—
It is all very easy for you to preach economy to us when you do not knowthe necessity for it: to tell us how, as for example in my own case, wemust live within my husband’s income of eight hundred dollars a year,when you have never known what it is to live on less than thousands. Hasit ever occurred to you, born with the proverbial silver spoon in yourmouth, that theoretical writing is pretty cold and futile compared tothe actual hand-to-mouth struggle that so many of us live, day by dayand year in and year out—an experience that you know not of?
“An experience that you know not of”!
Now, how far do the facts square with this statement?
Whether or not I was born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth Icannot say. It is true that I was born of well-to-do parents. But when Iwas six years old my father lost all his means, and faced life atforty-five, in a strange country, without even necessaries. There aremen and their wives who know what that means: for a