FOR

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.

BY

GEORGE M. STEELE, LL.D.,

PRINCIPAL OF WESLEYAN ACADEMY, WILBRAHAM, MASS., AND MEMBER OF
THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.

LEACH, SHEWELL, AND SANBORN.

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO.

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

C. J. PETERS & SON,
TYPOGRAPHERS AND ELECTROTYPERS.

TO THE

Alumni of the Lawrence University of Wisconsin,

AND ESPECIALLY

TO THE GRADUATES OF THE YEARS 1874 TO 1879,

WHO, WITH THE AUTHOR,

PURSUED THE STUDY OF THE SCIENCE, THE RUDIMENTS OF WHICH ARE HEREIN SET FORTH,

This Little Volume

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

"As

“Man, the molecule of society, is the subject of social science. His greatest need is that of AssOCIATION with his fellow-men." sociation depends upon INDIVIDUALITY. There can be no association without differences."

CAREY.

"The higher a living being stands in the order of nature, the greater the difference between its parts, and between each part and the whole organism. The lower the organism, the less the difference between the parts, and between each part and the whole."

GOETHE.

"Many members,

"For the body is not one member, but many." yet but one body." "Those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary." "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." — PAUL.

PREFACE.

THIS brief treatise is intended to meet the wants of

students in academies and high schools. There is no dearth of works on Political Economy, but most of them are too abstruse and elaborate for young pupils, while many prepared for this class are condensations rather than simplifications of the subject.

To present the principles of this study briefly and clearly, and at the same time exhibit satisfactorily through familiar illustrations their practical applications, is no easy task, yet this has been the aim of the author. success can be tested only by experience.

His

Another difficulty in the preparation of such a textbook lies in the fact that while at the present time a multitude of books on Political Economy have been written by able and reputable scholars, even on fundamental principles there is so wide a diversity of opinions and so much antagonism. This is intensified by the partisanship displayed by advocates of different views, and still more because these antagonizing doctrines have