n thousands of them
are, at this moment, in a state which may end in starvation; not so
much because they are too _lazy_ to earn their bread, as because they
are too _proud_!

And what are the _consequences_? A lazy youth becomes a burden to those
parents, whom he ought to comfort, if not support. Always aspiring to
something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of
disappointment and shame. If marriage _befall_ him, it is a real
affliction, involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand
times worse than that of the common laborer. Nineteen times out of
twenty a premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the
cases in which that death is most miserable, not to say ignominious!

SECTION IV. _On Economy._

There is a false, as well as a true economy. I have seen an individual
who, with a view to economy, was in the habit of splitting his wafers.
Sometimes a thick wafer can be split into two, which will answer a very
good purpose; but at others, both parts fall to pieces. Let the success
be ever so complete, however, all who reflect for a moment on the value
of time, must see it to be a losing process.

I knew a laboring man who would hire a horse, and spend the greater
part of a day, in going six or eight miles and purchasing half a dozen
bushels of grain, at sixpence less a bushel than he must have given
near home. Thus to gain fifty cents, he subjected himself to an
expense, in time and money, of one hundred and fifty. These are very
common examples of defective economy; and of that 'withholding' which
the Scripture says 'tends to poverty.'

Economy in time is economy of money--for it needs not Franklin to tell
us that time is equivalent to money. Besides, I never knew a person who
was economical of the one, who was not equally so of the other. Economy
of time will, therefore, be an important branch of study.

But the study is rather difficult. For though every young man of common
sense knows that an hour is _sixty minutes_, very few seem to know that
sixty minutes make an hour. On this account many waste fragments of
time,--of one, two, three or five minutes each--without hesitation, and
apparently without regret;--never thinking that fifteen or twenty such
fragments are equal to a full hour. 'Take care of the pence, the pounds
will take care of themselves,' is not more true, than that hours will
take care of themselves, if you will only secure the minutes.[1]

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