The Money Value Of Man

Ia spite of the fact that some of our fellow-mortals are popularly pronounced not worth the rope to hang them with, still every man may be said to have a considerable valué that can be proved and expressed ín tigures. Of course thia is true only provided nien are worth what they cost and what they have coat. Dr. K. Ludtge has recently published an extremely interesting article on " The Money Valué of Man." From this it appears that, bearing in mind the relative ratio of inortality and transferring the expenses of children that die before they can earn anything to the survivors, the bringing up of a laborer's child at the age of three, has cost 339 thalers ; at six, 705 ; at nine, 1,120 ; at t wel ve, 1,580 ; and at fifteen, 2,119 thalers. Among the higher classes, divided by the writer into the mercantile and the learned professions, the proportions are as follows : At five years the embryo merchant already has cost 1,153 thalers ; at ten, 2,536 thalers ; at fifteen, 4,238 ; and at twenty, the age at which his education may be looked upon as finished and when the young business man enters upon his real career, he represents the sum of 6,495 thalers speiit upon hini. In the case of a young man who devotes himself to a learned profession, his education is not finished till he reaches his twenty-flfth year, so that the amount spent on his education runs up to 10,388 thalers. From these figures some very interesting inferences may be drawn. To cover the interest of the capital speut on a young savant the head of a high school, a lawyer, or a theologian, a yearly salary of 500 thalers is not quite sufficient. It also follows from these calculations that, comparatively 3peaking, the laboring classes are decidedly more favored than the others. For from from the age of fifteen, or certainly from oighteen (including the term of apprentioeship), the young laborer receives wages fully equalling the interest on the capital invested iu his education - 2,100 thalers - whilst the professional man must wait till thirty to earn the same rate of interest on the capital spent on his education. The merchant's eaniings are about in proportion to his expenses. In the lowor classes a girl's education eosts about as much as a boy's, whilst among the higher tanks, considering her education finished with her twentieth' year, a girl will have caused her father an expense oí' 5,190 thalers. According to the census of 1871, the population of the Germán Empire is about 41,000,000, the half being males. Without fear of being far astray we may allow about 75 per cent. of the wholo population to the laboring classes, leaving 25 per cent. to the upper classes, including some million of professional men. Applying thenumbers given above, the money value of the population of the Germán Empire amounts to 77,500,000,000 thalers.- K. Y. World.