Young folks—boys and girls, say from ten or twelve to fifteen—almost never think of saving or putting by any of the little money that comes into their hands at so juvenile an age or for some years later. If they should think of forming a saving habit they would defer it until they had grown up, until they had got out of college, until they had begun life for themselves. Not a few of their parents may have the same opinion, may believe that children should not concern themselves in any way about money; that such concern belongs to maturity alone, and is unhealthy, positively hurtful to the very young by making them mercenary, in the end avaricious, even miserly.

There is no danger of this kind in our country, where the tendency is all in the opposite direction. In the Old World it is wholly different. Money is so scarce there generally that the few among the common people who get possession of any are inclined to hoard it. Here money is comparatively plenty. An American miser is seldom found. Certainly no native boy is in peril of becoming miserly because he puts by a few dollars every few weeks or months, instead of spending every cent that falls into his hands, often for things that do him more harm than good.

He may not save, because he has so little to save. But if he once begins he will be surprised to see how the little will grow, what a sum it will amount to after a while. He can scarcely keep trace of its growth if he tries to. It will prove a sort of Jack and his Bean Stalk, growing perpetually by night as well as by day, when he sleeps no less than when he wakes, while he thinks of it and when he forgets all about it. Money saved works a wonder, and, with interest added, becomes a miracle.

Many fathers make their boys a regular allowance—so much a week or a month, according to their means and their best judgment. Ordinarily the allowance is expended speedily, and another one looked for. Thus their money exists in the future, not in the present, and therefore has no existence really. All this is changed when part of the allowance is put by. The allowance steadily and regularly increases.

Boys, or girls either, do not need to have any financial training and business knowledge to save money. They can commence very early, years before they have entered their teens or have arrived at anything like the age of discretion. Their opportunity for investment is ever at hand; they have neither to wait for nor to seek it. It involves no risks, no uncertainties. The opportunity, the place, is the savings-bank, to be found in the smallest town or village, and in multiplied form in every city of any rank. Such banks generally pay from 3½ to 4½ per cent. interest per annum, and while this seems small, it is surprising how it will foot up in a short season, as any young person may ascertain, and as innumerable young persons have already ascertained. The banks are almost always safe, being founded for the good of the people, for the encouragement of the poor, for the establishment of thrifty habits, and being bound by rigorous, cautious, conservative rules that are seldom infringed. The smallest deposits, those that seem most insignificant—deposits of ten, even of five cents, are received, so that any child may become a depositor, if so minded. Cents soon augment into dollars, and a few dollars into hundreds through careful nursing and judicious attention. Fifty dollars will yield at 4 per cent. $2 a year; a hundred dollars, $4; and, interest upon interest added, will exceed all common calculation. Very young people rarely have any regular expenses, so that when they undertake the battle of life they are well equipped for it monetarily, and with very little effort. Their accumulation has been wellnigh unconscious, and is singularly satisfactory. The return is great for the small labor and diligence involved, and resembles play more than work.

Girls are less prone to saving than boys are, for they are as a rule less provident, less practical, less disposed to look ahead, less concerned about their own maintenance, naturally. But they have precisely the same chances, the same facilities, the same inducements. Girls of an independent turn of mind, who are hopeful of a career, as many are in these days, should follow the example of their brothers in saving, and they will be well rewarded.

Money is material, of course, but the material affects the mental quickly. If a comparison be made between the boys who have established the saving habit and those who have not established it, the former will be found to have many advantages. Saving includes much looking after, a sense of proportion, self-confidence, the adaptation of means to ends. It fixes responsibility. Boys who have saved for a special purpose, to buy something that they particularly wanted, and that costs more than they felt they could afford, know how grateful it was to achieve their object, and how speedily it was gained. Such saving is an example of what the regular habit of saving ensures to the mind and the character of the regular saver. The effect is complete instead of partial, permanent instead of transitory. The habit of early saving works a gradual revolution; it is an extra education, a species of commonplace magic which the readers of Harper's Round Table need but practise to realize fully. On it and its direct results may hang much of their future success.

Junius Henri Browne.