The mail has just brought me my own copy of Simon Newcomb’s great 1886 economics text, Principles of Political Economy. Just for fun, I offer you one of the questions at the end of one of the chapters that no modern student of economics ever gets asked or would likely have a ready answer to.

Trace the economic effect of the frugal New England population putting their money into savings banks. What do savings really consist in?

Even the notion of a frugal population is pretty antique. But all the difference in the world lies in the answer to that question.