If children are unable to buy books, allowing them to borrow daily is a
source of annoyance to both borrower and lender. Besides it daily
emphasizes the contrast in the financial condition between the richer
and the poorer. This is wrong. It fosters haughtiness in the one and
undue humiliation in the other. While you are supervising play you can
easily manage to have the neglected children drawn into play and even
chosen for the enviable parts in the games. It largely depends upon the
teacher’s influence whether the public school is a leveler of false
barriers or a hotbed where selfishness is cultivated.
The borrowing habit, if fostered even among children of equal rank,
teaches a disregard for the property rights of others. Americans are
especially lax in their thought and behavior relative to property
rights, and the public schools can do the nation a great service by
giving its children correct notions concerning appropriation without
ownership, and in selfishness as contrasted with altruism, in both rich
and poor. The rich often enjoy display and the poor retaliate by
vandalism. Both wrongs are the outgrowth of selfishness.