through two years of college life, and I am sure you are
not an ignoramus. Most of the great men of the world's history have
enjoyed no fuller educational advantages. To lend you money to finish
the college course, would be to help you to start life at the age of
twenty-two under the burden of debt. If you are determined to finish a
college course, and feel that only by so doing will you equip yourself
for the duties of life, I would advise you to drop out for a year and
teach, or go into any kind of work which will enable you to earn enough
to proceed with your studies. However hard and however disappointing
this advice seems to you, I know it suggests a course which will do more
for your character than all the money I could lend you.

Aside from the fact that you would begin life with a debt, is the
possibility of your contracting the debt habit.

One man in a thousand who borrows money to help himself along in early
life is benefited by it.

The other 999 are harmed.

To do anything on another's money is to lean on the shoulder of another
instead of walking upright. It is not good calisthenic exercise.

A few years ago I would have acceded to your request.

But each year I live I realize more and more that lending money is the
last method to be used in helping people to better themselves. In almost
every case where I have lent money, I have lived to regret it. Not
because I lost my money (which has usually been the fact), but because
I lost respect for my friends.

I remember the case of a young newspaper man and author, who came to me
for the loan of five dollars. I had never seen him before, but I knew
his brother, a brilliant playwright, in a social way.

The young man told me he had met with a series of disasters on the
voyage to New York, and was stranded there absolutely penniless,
although money would come at almost any hour from his brother.

Besides this, he showed me letters from editors who had taken work which
would be paid for on publication.

"I do not know any one here," the young man said, "and to-day, when I
used my last twenty-five cents, I thought of you in desperation.

"Your acquaintance with my brother would serve as an introduction, I
felt, and I was confident you would realize my straits when I told you
my errand."

Of course I lent the young man five dollars. "I am sure it must be a
great humiliation for you to ask for this," I said, "and I am certain
you will repay it, though m