Excerpt from A History of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, 1816-1916 The history of Savings Banks has been told SO Often that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. It is proper however to say that the germ Of the Savings Bank idea was active on the Continent of Europe long before the Ruthwell Parish experiment in Scot land, which fixed the date for computing the centenary Of Savings Banks, celebrated at Edinburgh in 1910. Modified by conditions and environment the development in the first quarter Of the nineteenth century seemed to find a congenial soil in Great Britain and following small beginnings took on an immediate and continuous growth which culminated in the institutions now become such an important and familiar factor in the economic life abroad and at home. The Savings Bank is the child Of benevolence and political economy. The news Of its rapid growth in Great Britain came to this country in journals and pamphlets that attracted the attention Of some Of the public spirited and thoughtful men Of the day. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.