46 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK
tobacco, and maxims of economy such as, “Save
your dimes and buy you a home or a farm.”
GOOD RESULTS
As a factor in Negro education there was then
probably nothing better than this literature and
the bank it represented and the good effects were
soon observed. Many Negroes, who a few
months before had been slaves, began to save
and make deposits. It became the fashion to
have a bank account, no matter how small.
Sums were received from five cents up, and on
deposits of $1.00 or more interest was paid semiannually
 at the rate of six per cent. Of course
the deposits of a year were not much larger than
the withdrawals, but according to bank officials
the money drawn out was often spent intelligently.
 The Negro would put money into the
bank during the summer and fall to be used in
the winter and spring when supplies were scarce.
Thrift was encouraged; many saved in order to
purchase homes, or to purchase farm stock and
implements. Less money was spent for whiskey
and for articles of worthless finery so dear to the
African heart. The Negroes who had bank books
were less easily swindled by the multitude of
sharpers who came to teach them the ways of
freemen. Many years later Booker T.Washington
declared: “No work was ever undertaken for the
benefit of the Freedmen more laudable in its purpose
 or more designed to assist a people who had
just come out of slavery to get on their feet.”
7 Booklets, etc. Freedmen’s Savings Bank, 1867-1872. See Appendix.
pp. 144-146.
8 Washington, Story of the Negro, 11, p. 214. See also Brawley, Short
History of the American Negro, p. 126.