The Washington herald., 1916-08-04
Can You Finance Yourself.
BY oR1soN swE1r MARDEN.

ton al It's annual convention IN new ioiA, III
july s. w. Strauss, president of the American
Society for Thrift, made this statement:
"We are teaching our boys and girls arithme-
tic, history, and geography-our agricultural
schools teaching them to till the soil scien-
tifcay and to develop the resources of the land
through education. We are teaching household
economies. We are teaching morality and hy-
giene. We are teaching everything worth while
but practical thrift-and say to you, my friends
that we are neglectng one of the most important
branches of education"
There is nothing else needed in Ameri-
can life than education in practical thrift we
are not as people brought up to appreciate
the Importance of getting the most out OF our
incomes We not taught in youth how to
expend money in the most advantageous man
ner. Yet nothing is imperative, for no
matter how much youth may know If he
cannot finance himself respectfully he is to such
an extent failure.
When we in this land of infinite resources
vast number of honest, hard-workng people
earning enough to make them comfortable, yet
so poor that they cannot afford many of the
bare necessities of proper, healthful living, not
to speak of the little luxuries or pleasures of
life, we get some idea of the criminal lack OF
thrift training in our national life
| This lack of thrift, which is one of the main
causes Of poverty, is responsible for more un-
happy and ruined homes and more divorces than
almost anything else.
1t is astonishing how few people have learned
how to spend their money to the best advantage.
The ease and facility with which small change
slips through the fingers of American youth, and
older people, too is appalling
Only recently young man working for thir-
ty dollars month told me that he had just in
|ted two friends to dine with him, and their
dinner bill amounted to four dollars and a half
Think of young spending almost sew
enth part of his months wages for single din
ner! He said that it was too bad" it was all
wrong but added what could I do? Ny
friends ordered from the bill of fare and | had
to pay the bill"
This is a good illustration of the way the
majority OF people let money slip from them.
We are living in cxtravagant age, and the
temptations on every hand especially in large
cities, are alluring that it is very difficult
for young who has not been trained in
habits OF thrift to resist them and save his
money
Thousands of young men who are receiving
good salaries never think Of laying up dollar
They see nothing in their salaries but "a good
travaganceS of some sort, and they never bother
about the future. They take too literally, the
admontion: Let the morrow take care of it
SELF You ask them how they are doing and
they will say: "Oh, just getting along" "just
making a living" Gust holding my own"
Just holding ones own is not getting on The
little difference between what you can earn and
what you spend is power. 1t often measures the
distance between success and failure
Many people have the false idea that thrift
or wise economy means stinginess, parsmony
But it means nothing OF the kind
Thrift does not mean pnching economy which
buys food, cheap food for the sake of saving or
buys poor clothing, or lives in poor, unhealthy
location in order to pile up dollars That is par
slmony, miserliness, which is the opposite of
real thrift Thrift means the wisest possible ex-
penditufe of what have. 1t means spending
for health, for efficiency for the highest possible
welfare OF the individual. 1t means financing
yourself on scientific principles of efficiency, so
that no matter what your salary, whether ten or
nifty dollars week, you shall manage it on the
principle OF thrift in it's true sense.
recall an instance of father in easy cir
cumstances who taught his son how to do this
! IN very simple and effective wav. The son
wanted to learn the art of printing. The father
consented to his doing so on condition that he
S"oulu i've at home and pay his board weekly
out OF his very small earnings The youth
thought this very harsh, for it left him scarcely
any money for spending But when he was of
age and thorough master of his trade, his IA
ther said to him: Here, my boy is the money
you paid us for board during your apprentice
snip. never intended to keep it, but only to
save II Tor your use, and l will give you with it
SS nlueh more as will enable you to go into
business for yourself"
His fathers wisdom was then annarent n the
grateful young man, for while his companions
had contracted bad habits in spending every
'e"' OF their wages, and were, many of them, in
poverty he was able to start in business at once
Inc son never forgot his early lesson in
financing himself scientifically on the thrift prin-
eipie' He went into business and in a few wears
became one of the most prosncrous nubI;sbe-s
in this country
Copyright l96J