IN the last two chapters there was set forth the absolute necessity of system and plan in any effort to save money. But I know these chapters will leave many people unconvinced.

"It is all very well to talk about saving," I hear them say, "but what is the use of going into all these details when one hasn't enough to save on. Why, if I could put aside five dollars or ten dollars a week there might be some point in it, but I would almost starve if I did that. I can't save enough to amount to anything."

In this reasoning lies the tragedy of many lives. I speak from knowledge - real, live and intimate. It is the tragedy of the very, very poor, and no less of those whose incomes are far from small. It is the dreadful fallacy upon which even men with incomes as high as ten thousand dollars a year have gone astray and their lives become embittered. Save a little, no matter how little, begin as young as possible and stick to it. That is the lesson of bitter experience, the secret of being able to acquire a competence, often the secret of business success. Here is one instance which I know of in a most intimate way.

A young man of twenty-four left his little country college after four happy and fruitful years, for a position in a great city at fifteen dollars a week. It was a good position in that it was certain, with hard work, to lead to much higher achievements, and it did. The salary seemed large to the young man, but his health had never been especially good and several illnesses soon melted his small savings away. His work, although full of interest, was with its irregular hours, a constant drain upon his vitality. At first he lived economically at cheap restaurants and lodging houses, but this soon became intolerable and he raised his scale of living. There seemed no margin for saving and after a few months of struggle he gave it up.

To-day that man is nearing forty and is more successful than he had ever really expected to be. His income is not a great one, but it is a fair round sum. But he saves hardly a dollar. His habit of living up to his income has stuck by him. A wife and three children, frequent illness and the necessity of having specialists, travel, summer vacations at the seashore and other similar expenditures always wipe out a steadily growing income. A moderate amount of life-insurance protects his family to some extent, but it is not anything like enough. I do not doubt that his professional effectiveness is reduced by worry about the future. What will become of his family if he should be taken away?

The fatal error which this man made was not to save a little of his first salary of fifteen dollars a week and keep it up. Knowing him as I do, I do not believe he could have saved two dollars a week of that fifteen without actual suffering. But he could have saved one dollar without missing it. It seemed such a small sum at the time, or perhaps he never thought of it at all. If the one-dollar habit had been formed fifteen years ago that man would be nearing the one-thousand-dollar mark on the basis of one dollar a week alone, and would by this time be saving far more than that from mere force of habit. To-day it is too late to begin.

Saving never slips on like an old coat. It is never induced by theory or by moralizing. It is a matter of practise, of habit. Persistency and regularity do the trick. The value of saving pennies is largely to get the habit. We all know the older we are the harder it is to acquire any habit. The man of forty or fifty is too settled in his habits to learn. He can not give up what he thinks are necessary luxuries, but which merely seem necessary to him because he is no longer young enough to be elastic in his tastes and wants.

For that matter children should be taught to earn and spend money efficiently when they are young, and their minds receptive and plastic. Too many children are never taught to earn money in their younger days, and then are foolishly expected to have the money-making faculty developed and ready for use when they reach maturity. The time to teach any subject is at the earliest possible age that a beginning can be made. It is a grave mistake to assume that children will spend the most impressionable part of their lives in careless disregard of money matters and then grow up frugal and provident.

So I say start young, save a little, but stick to it. And let me emphasize the advantage, paradox as it may seem, of saving a little rather than much. Figures show that persons who deposit between five dollars and twenty-five dollars a month are more persistent savers than those who try to set aside a larger sum. Some people save half their income, but this involves a degree of economy that few would care to imitate. More save twenty-five per cent. A great many save ten per cent., which involves comparatively little sacrifice, and builds up a surprisingly large sum in a few years with the aid of compound interest.

The great trouble is that people want to make money with a leap and a bound. They are not satisfied to proceed slowly, quietly and surely. The get-rich-quick idea pervades the saving end of money making no less than the investment end. Such persons are like some religious converts who try to acquire all the goodness in the universe at once. It is too good to last.