Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

"A young man may have many friends," says Sir Thomas Lipton, "but he will find none so steadfast, so constant, so ready to respond to his wants, so capable of pushing him ahead, as a little leather-covered book, with the name of a bank on the cover. Saving is the first great principle of success. It creates independence, it gives a young man standing, it fills him with vigor, it stimulates him with proper energy; in fact, it brings to him the best part of any success,—happiness and contentment."

It is estimated that if a man will begin at twenty years of age to lay by twenty-six cents every working day, investing at seven per cent. compound interest, he will at seventy years of age have amassed thirty-two thousand dollars.

"Economy is wealth." This proverb has been repeated to most of us until we are either tired of it or careless of it, but it is well to remember that a saying becomes a proverb because of its truth and significance. Many a man has proved that if economy is not actual wealth, it is, in many cases, potentially so.

Professor Marshall, the noted English economist, estimates that $500,000,000 is spent annually by the British working classes for things that do nothing to make their lives nobler or happier. At a meeting of the British Association, the president, in an address to the economic section, expressed his belief that the simple item of food-waste alone would justify the above-mentioned estimate. One potent cause of waste to-day is that very many of the women do not know how to buy economically, and are neither passable cooks nor good housekeepers. Edward Atkinson estimated that in the United States the waste from bad cooking alone is over a hundred million dollars a year!

"Provided he has some ability and good sense to start with, is thrifty, honest, and economical," said Philip D. Armour, "there is no reason why any young man should not accumulate money and attain so-called success in life." When asked to what qualities he attributed his own success, Mr. Armour said: "I think that thrift and economy had much to do with it. I owe much to my mother's training and to a good line of Scotch ancestors, who have always been thrifty and economical."

"A young man should cultivate the habit of always saving something," said the late Marshall Field, "however small his income." It was by living up to this principle that Mr. Field became the richest and most successful merchant in the world. When asked by an interviewer, whom I sent to him on one occasion, what he considered the turning point in his career, he answered, "Saving the first five thousand dollars I ever had, when I might just as well have spent the modest salary I made. Possession of that sum, once I had it, gave me the ability to meet opportunities. That I consider the turning point."

The first savings prove the turning point in many a young man's career. But it is true that the lack of thrift is one of the greatest curses of modern civilization. Extravagance, ostentatious display, a desire to outshine others, is a vice of our age, and especially of our country. Some one has said that "investigation would place at the head of the list of the cause of poverty, wastefulness inherited from wasteful parents."

"If you know how to spend less than you get," said Franklin, "you have the philosopher's stone." The great trouble with many young people is that they do not acquire the saving habit at the start, and never find the "philosopher's stone." They don't learn to spend less than they get. If they learned that lesson in time, they would have little difficulty in making themselves independent. It is this first saving that counts.

John Jacob Astor said it cost him more to get the first thousand dollars than it did afterwards to get a hundred thousand; but if he had not saved the first thousand, he would have died poor.

"The first thing that a man should learn to do," says Andrew Carnegie, "is to save his money. By saving his money he promotes thrift,—the most valued of all habits. Thrift is the great fortune-maker. It draws the line between the savage and the civilized man. Thrift not only develops the fortune, but it develops, also, the man's character."