One of the chief aims for a young man or woman is a college education, or some kind of special business or professional training. Do we need testimony to prove that education is worth almost any privation?

The School of Journalism of the University of Missouri has prepared a series of advertisements for the banks of that state in which the cause of education and the encouragement of the habit of saving are admirably united.

"If you will open an account with us when your son enters high school," says one of the advertisements, "and let him help you each week, by the time he completes his high-school course there will be sufficient in the fund to take him through college."

Of course, the purpose is to have parents save money with the education of their children as an object and then use those savings by sending the young people to the Missouri institution. But the idea is a good one for parents everywhere.

"Three hundred dollars a year will give your son or daughter a university education.

"This is about the average yearly expense of each of the three thousand five hundred students at the University of Missouri.

"Only ten dollars a month deposited in the bank at compound interest for eighty months will enable your son to achieve his heart's desire for a college education. He can earn enough in vacations to finish out the fund." There are few parents who can not afford to put one dollar in the bank at the birth of every boy and girl. The baby is worth at least that much. By making it two dollars on the first birthday and a dollar more at each succeeding birthday a sum of three hundred and six dollars and sixteen cents is reached at the age of twenty. Thus owing to the great length of childhood and the silent effectiveness of compound interest, a good round sum to start a college education or a little independent business is reached by the time the boy is ready to go out into the world.

Children are expensive. It costs so much to bring them into the world, to feed, clothe and educate them, that many parents find it almost impossible to save. To buy shoes for four or five children is enough in itself to take a big part of the week's wages. But if you will teach your children to save early in life they will soon have habits which make their future success a certainty, surely a noble object for any parent to have in view.

"A man who has children can leave them no better legacy," says E. F. Mack, vice-president of the Central Trust Company of Chicago, "than the savings habit, formed through years of actual practise, for such a habit, coupled with honesty, industry and courtesy, will insure the business success of any child later in life."

Boys and girls themselves take great delight in saving money when once they are shown its usefulness and some good end in view. The idea of buying a bicycle or other possession of real value will appeal to them enough to sacrifice candies and knick-knacks. The best plan is to give a child a small but regular weekly allowance as soon as he or she reaches the age of ten or twelve, and encourage the placing of part of the allowance in a savings-bank. As soon as the youth becomes interested in the idea of a college or business education he can be encouraged to place the entire allowance in the bank for the great object ahead.

One of the best tests of the worth of a man is his power to be prepared for emergencies. "Be prepared" is the motto of the Boy Scouts of America. When sickness, accident or trouble comes, your best friend is the little leather book which shows there is a bank-account somewhere.

In times of illness nothing aids quick recovery more than absolute freedom from worry. And worry is caused almost always because no provision has been made for the "rainy day." The man who saves does not experience this worry - he knows he can meet the bills.

We expect our friends to help us when we are in trouble, and unexpected affliction often brings unexpected assistance, but it also shows up those who are not our true friends. How much better to be able to provide for one's own emergencies! It has been said that money is only stored up labor. If you have stored up some of this treasure it will work for you when you are not able to do a stroke of work yourself.

Think of the men who die in harness because they can't finance a real vacation. I believe there are any number of men earning good salaries, but who could not afford a long rest because they have never provided for such a contingency.

Sometimes the care of one's old parents has proved a powerful motive for saving. A bookkeeper twenty years old supported an aged father and mother. Because of the father's ill health it was necessary to move to a suburb. On the moving day the young man lost his job, but did not tell his parents. He had saved one hundred and fifty dollars and went to the city every day as usual for a month, hunting a new position. Finally he was able to get work with an automobile agency at twenty dollars a month. He knew nothing about automobiles but spent every spare moment for a year studying mechanics and is now assistant to the local manager at a good salary.