Poverty Prepares for Wealth.

HON. J. H. BRIGHAM, State Senator of Ohio.

E do not write of extreme or hopeless poverty such as is sometimes found in the wretched dens of our large cities. Children who survive such surroundings are more likely to gravitate towards the prison or almshouse than to become respectable and wealthy citizens. Still there are cases where children raised under such unfavorable conditions have become successful and honored members of society. I shall confine what I have to say on this subject to those who have none of the luxuries of life, except good plain clothes and food, and who find it necessary to practice rigid economy, and cultivate habits of industry in their childhood days. They thus learn the cost of a dollar, and how to get its worth when they part with it. Having no property, or very little, they are not likely to contract that worst of all methods of business, buying on credit. Necessity compels them to "pay as they go," and they soon realize that they have discovered the "philosopher's stone." It is time that they may depart from this safe business rule when they do have credit, and suffer the consequences, but the habit of "paying as you go" once formed is not likely to be abandoned, and is one of the best preparations for wealth. I do not of course refer to credit obtained in purchasing a farm, a house, or the necessary outfit for business, or work, but to purchase what is consumed, or what cannot be made to produce or save money.

The absence of wealth compels thought and planning to get along without that which we are not obliged to have, or leads

us to devise ways and means of supplying our wants without reducing our working capital. The young man who has no money is not sought after by associates who would like to help him spend it. He is not urged to visit the saloons and garbling houses, as he has no feathers to pluck. Being obliged to work, he learns to be independent and self-reliant. And when the day's work is ended, nature demands rest, and he is likely to heed the demand, and thus avoid the temptation and danger that hide in the darkness, and lead many boys into the downward road that ends in extreme poverty, if not in crime. As poverty does not furnish means to be wasted in idling away time in school, the poor boy is generally diligent, and forms the habit of improving every moment that can be spared for study, and thus another step is taken on the road that leads from poverty to wealth. The poor young man has no time to waste in the society of frivolous young women, and is not a favorite even of his parents. He therefore avoids that drain which has impoverished many young men.

It would be an easy matter to furnish many examples of poor boys who have become very wealthy, but it is not necessary. An investigation will show that a very large majority of the men of wealth in this country were comparatively poor in their youth. On the other hand, boys who have been reared with all the surroundings of wealth are often unable to add to what they inherit. Many of them, in fact, sink into poverty simply because they have never been compelled to learn the value of money by earning it by their own labor, and have never been taught by stern necessity to economize and save their substance. I do not say that what is true in the United States is true everywhere. I believe it is a difficult matter for the poor in the old world to advance from poverty to wealth. What I have written, therefore, is intended to apply principally to the land of glorious opportunities, the United States of America.

Where to Get Rich.

HOMER T. FULLER, PH.D., Pres. Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass.

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NE of the ancient philosophers said, "Give me where to stand and I will move the world." By this he meant not

place, but principles; not locality, but a basis for thought and conduct. A young man once said to a friend, "I am ready to begin the practice of my profession if I can only find a place." "It is all place," was the reply. "You can start anywhere if you have in you the marrow of success."

For the securing of a competence, there are but three external conditions, viz., a temperate climate, a just government, and a country which has fair natural resources. These conditions exist in almost every part of the United States, and almost everywhere it is possible for a man to acquire wealth. The proof is found in the fact that there are to-day men of wealth in every state in the Union, and in smaller towns as well as in larger cities. Indeed, a large proportion of the richer residents of our cities began life in country towns, laid there the physical and mental foundations of their prosperity, there their accumulations, and removed to cities either for greater convenience in the prosecution of their business, or for the enjoyment in a new sphere of society of the fruits of their acquisitions.

It is said that Portland, Oregon, has more millionaires than San Francisco; Portland, Maine, more rich men in proportion to its population than Boston, and that the owners of two of the largest estates in New England have spent nearly all their lives in towns of less than five thousand inhabitants. The founder and endower of a New England University began his business career in one of the most rugged hill towns of the Bay State,

and one of the largest capitalists in New Jersey has resided fourscore years in an upland village. Men have created towns, and so the whole social atmosphere which has environed them. The Fairbanks of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, bought a water power, invented scales and the machinery for their manufacture; developed a world-wide trade; built up a village, and established and endowed an academy, a library and art gallery, and a natural history museum.

The Cranes of Dalton, Massachusetts, the Cheneys of South Manchester, Connecticut, the Slaters of Rhode Island, Mr. Andrew Carnegie at Braddock and Homestead, Pennsylvania, Mr. George M. Pullman in the Illinois town which bears his name, and many others have made place and occupations for themselves and thousands of their fellows. They did not find it necessary to adopt the advice of Horace Greeley and "go West." Indeed, they often chose most unpromising sites, but by their energy and perseverance overcame obstacles, and made rocks and sands and clay-banks and even mud their servitors. In every region of our broad land, there are undeveloped resources. Within ten years a small town in Vermont has more than trebled its population and increased its wealth many fold by quarrying granite; other towns in the same state mine marble, or slate, or soapstone. There are millions yet in scores of mineral deposits in the Eastern United States; and there are millions more in the raising of fruit and vegetables right hereabouts where we live, for a near market. But we must study ourselves more, nature more thoroughly, the laws and methods of business with a keen eye and an earnest purpose, put our whole heart and our entire strength into the work we choose, and, under ordinary circumstances, we cannot fail of measurable success.

The Secret of Saving.

REV. JAMES W. COLE, B.D.

ASTE makes men poor. Waste keeps them poor. Not so much the great wastes, the wars, the pestilences, and

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the famines, although the wealth destroyed by them during the centuries has been enormous, exceeding many times the present wealth of the nations of the earth; but it is the lesser and constant wastes that so impoverish mankind. Even among the most advanced nations this waste is immense. In England during the last six years there have been, according to the writers of "The Land," more than a thousand million dollars swallowed up in investment companies, and various banking schemes. Much more than that amount has been sunk in the United States within that period through various speculative enterprises. The many stock and produce exchanges have become almost wholly speculative concerns, if not gambling institutions. In a single year the Cotton Exchange, of New York City, sold over thirty-two million bales of cotton, when the entire production of cotton in this country for that year was less than six million bales. In that same year, the Liverpool Cotton Exchange so speculated and disturbed the market that fifteen million spindles, giving employment to thousands of men and women, were forced to stop work, causing a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars to manufacturers, and a yet greater loss to their employees. In that year the oil wells of the United States produced nearly thirty million barrels of oil, but the New York Petroleum Exchange alone sold during the year two thousand million barrels of oil, and somebody had to lose by the gambling. In consequence of this speculation in products and stocks, ten men in the city of New York in that