Vernon. This frugal and prudent man knew exactly what it meant to
devote his "life and fortune to the cause we are engaged in, if
needful," as he wrote in 1774. This was not an exaggerated or emotional
phrase. It was moderate, but it meant business. He risked his whole
fortune. What he lost through his service in the Revolutionary War is
clearly stated in a letter written from Mt. Vernon in 1784: "I made no
money from my estate during the nine years I was absent from it, and
brought none home with me. Those who owed me, for the most part, took
advantage of the depreciation, and paid me off with sixpence in the
pound. Those to whom I was indebted, I have yet to pay, without other
means, if they will wait, than selling part of my estate, or distressing
those who were too honest to take advantage of the tender laws to quit
scores with me." Should we not all be glad if to-day a hundred or two
multi-millionaires could give such an account as that of their losses
incurred in the public service, even if they had not, like Washington,
risked their lives as well? In our times we have come to think that a
rich man should not be frugal or economical, but rather wasteful or
extravagant. We have even been asked to believe that a cheap coat makes
a cheap man. If there were a fixed relation between a man's character
and the price of his clothes, what improvement we should have seen in
the national character since 1893! At Harvard University, twelve hundred
students take three meals a day in the great dining-room of Memorial
Hall, and manage the business themselves through an elected President
and Board of Directors. These officers proscribe stews, apparently
because it is a form in which cheap meat may be offered them,
neglecting the more important fact that the stew is the most nutritious
and digestible form in which meats can be eaten. Mr. Edward Atkinson,
the economist, invented an oven in which various kinds of foods may be
cheaply and well prepared with a minimum of attention to the process.
The workingmen, among whom he attempted to introduce it, took no