92 THE HOME, FARM AND 1USIXKSS CYCLOPAEDIA. 



Independence ! independence ! the right and the power to follow the 

 bent of your genius without fear of the bailiff and dun should be your 

 first inflexible aim. To attain independence, so apportion your expendi- 

 ture as to spend less than you have or you earn. Make this rule impera- 

 tive. I know of none better. Lay by something every year, if it be but 

 a shilling. A shilling laid by, net and clear from a debt, is a receipt in 

 full for all claims in the past, and you go on with light foot and light 

 heart to the future. " How am I to save and lay by ? " saith the author, 

 or any other man of wants more large than his means. The answer is 

 obvious : " If you can not increase your means, then you must diminish 

 your wants." Every skilled labourer of fair repute can earn enough not 

 to starve, and a surplus beyond that bare sufficiency. Yet many a skilled 

 labourer suffers more from positive privation than the unskilled rural 

 peasant. Why ? Because he encourages wants in excess of his means. 



A man of 300 a year, living up to that income, truly complains of pov- 

 erty ; but if he live at the rate of 250 a year, he is comparatively rich. 

 *' Oh," says Gentility, " but I must have this or that, which necessitates 

 the yearly 50 you ask me to save I must be genteeL" Why that must ? 

 That certain folk may esteem you ? Believe me, they esteem you much 

 more for a balance at your banker's than for that silver teapot or that 

 mannikin menial in sugar-loaf buttons. "But," says Parental Affection, 

 " I must educate my boy ; that 50 saved from my income is the cost of 

 his education." Is it so ? Can all the school-masters in Europe teach 

 him a nobler lesson than that of a generous thrift, a cheerful and brave 

 self-denial ? If the 50 be really the sum which the boy's schooling 

 needs, and you can spare nothing else from your remaining 250, still save 

 and lay by for a year, and during that year let the boy study at home, by 

 seeing how gladly you all are saving for him. Then the next year the 

 schooling is the present which you all father, mother, and sister by 

 many slight acts of self-denial, have contrived to make to your boy. And 

 if he be a boy of good heart, a boy such as rjarents so thoughtful nearly 

 -always rear, he will go to his school determined to make up to you for all 

 the privations he has seen those he loves endure for his sake. 



You may tell me that practically it comes to the same thing, for the 

 school goes on, and next year you must equally pinch for the 50. True ; 

 but there is this mighty difference, you are a year in advance of the sum ; 

 and, the habit of saving thus formed, you may discover something else that 

 will bear a retrenchment. He who saves for one year finds the security, 

 pleasure, and pride in it a luxury so great that his invention will be quick- 

 ened to keep it. Lay by ! lay by ! What makes the capital of nations ? 



