Part 39

The man who does not save is pretty sure to live beyond his means and some day trouble or affliction will come and he will be out of a job and then he appreciates the difference between the butterfly and the bee.

When you haven't anything to fall back upon, the world is a mighty blue place. When you have money in the bank it is a mighty good place to live in.

Waiting For Success

It takes a good poker-player to know when to lay down his hand.

It's a wise business-man who knows when to quit a forlorn hope.

It's all right to build up a business. It is all wrong to play a losing game in business for a succession of years in the hopes of ultimate success.

As years go by the business man is establishing matters on a firmer and more solid foundation. Sales generally increase; the volume of the business gradually grows greater. This fact is responsible for many business men continuing their business at a loss, lured on by the hope of final success. It's all right to build a reputation and to be patient, but when the odds are against you and by all the changes you make and all the brains and ingenuity you put into your business, you cannot turn it into a profitable basis, then get out of that business and start something new.

It's all right to build, provided that as you go along you are making a living profit, but dogged determination to play a losing game year after year is not to a man's credit.

Every man has some particular channel in which his talents will fit and produce good results. If your business goes along year after year at a loss, it is evident that your talents are not in the right channel.

The great thing in business is that it shall respond quickly and show signs of life right away. If it does not, then the business is wrong.

The shores of the great ocean of business are strewn with wrecks which have been dashed to pieces on the rocks sailing for that false beacon light, "keep everlastingly at it brings success."

This saying is true, providing you are making expenses and some profit as you go along, but to keep everlastingly at it when your business shows a loss means failure.

The thing that lures many on is the increased sales. Meanwhile, the expenses are increasing proportionately, and if these two lines are always parallel, there is no hope of your making a success. Better quit before you get too deep in the hole and have a lot of "dead horses" to pay for.

It's all right to have ambition, tenacity and patience in business and to look forward to the far future as crowning success of your efforts, but it's all wrong unless you are paying expenses and making a living while doing these things.

Our Sons

The noblest and most important work we have to do is the training and teaching of the coming generation.

The successful business man has no more difficult problem to solve than what he will do with his son.

It is a fact that the greatest successes in the business world today are those men who had to start in the battle early, and fight their way to the front.

The successful business man usually tries to arrange matters so that his son will not require to go through the hard working school of experience he himself attended, and in this the business man rather goes to the other extreme in that he tries to make things easy for his boy.

As the twig is bent so the tree is inclined. The young mind is plastic and capable of receiving impressions, and we know that the impressions made in our youth are lasting all our days.

The problem in the country is not so difficult, for there are so many things to do about the home that the young country boy usually has plenty of chores and duties to perform.

Occupation is a decided blessing and a present benefit to a boy.

People in the cities have all creature comforts about the homes, transportation facilities are ample, the homes are heated by steam, stores are in abundance, people buy from day to day, and every little convenience is at hand to keep the scheme of living going along smoothly.

Because the city boy is surrounded with schools and the comforts of home he has much time on his hands. The boy is active, and if his activity is not turned on useful things, it will be turned on useless things. The young boy goes to the grammar school, and the daylight hours, outside of school hours, are devoted to play. This is right and as it should be, but when the boy gets along to twelve or fourteen years of age, the parents should arrange for him some little duties, some regular task to perform. The youngster will get accustomed to this, and it is decidedly beneficial. As the boy enters the high school he finds his hours shorter and his leisure hours longer.

The high school period is a most important one in the boy's life, and the father should see to it that the high school boy is occupied for several hours each day, either in his own place of business or in some other establishment.

There is no way of teaching a boy the value of money like having him work for money.

Arrange to pay your boy so much an hour for the duties he performs. Have his occupation regular, talk with him about what he has done during the day, be a companion to the boy, and soon you will notice that he evinces interest in the things he is doing, and as time passes, ambition is fired in his breast, and when the time comes for him to enter the threshold of business he has been prepared for the work.

It is strange that while we parents realize the importance of education, we pay so little attention to the boy while he is going to school. We should keep in touch with the boy's teachers and with the boy himself, taking an interest in his studies. The business man as a rule drifts apart from his son during his younger years.