Once I spent Sunday at the home of a famous railroad president. It was a wonderful great stone mansion in which he and his wife lived "alone" in a wealth of servants. There was a servant for this and a servant for that. Privacy was impossible and life was one continual procession of appointments, directors' meetings, social functions, and the like.

At the Sunday dinner that day, while two butlers were waiting on the table, a third stood with a great pile of vouchers at the back of the railroad president's chair. The meal consisted of many courses and the duties of this special butler consisted simply of putting in front of this railroad president between courses a bunch of vouchers which he would sign.

After dinner we went into the library and sat before the great fireplace. I asked him to tell me something about his early life. Briefly, it was this:

He had graduated when a young man from an eastern technical school as a civil engineer. He was married immediately after graduation and he and his wife went in a construction train from New York westward to the Missouri River. This was as far as any rails had then been laid. After crossing the river, a camp fire was made and their home life started. From that point on he and his wife traveled and lived in a prairie schooner for more than three years, - until the rails hit the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Their first child was born in the prairie schooner.

As these days came back to the memory of the man, his voice began to break and then tears came to the eyes of his tired wife.

"What's the matter, dearest?" he said. "What's the matter? You enjoyed those days, didn't you?"

"Yes," she replied, "I certainly did and I wish we were back there now. Those were the days when we enjoyed real prosperity."

The Difficulty

Take care - quote me correctly. Statistics do not teach that true success consists simply in returning back to nature and in leading the simple life. The hands of the clock can never be set back. We must adapt ourselves to existing conditions and not pleasant theories. True prosperity depends upon a three-fold development. He who fails in any one is handicapped. Enduring investments call for health, happiness, and financial independence, - that is, one should have enough income to be able to live as he should.

But of these three things, - health, happiness, and independence, the last - which so many of us make the most important - is the least important of all. The investment of money in mere stocks, bonds, mortgages, and other things is not a truly enduring investment. The real enduring investments are in happiness, peace, and love, - and the greatest of these is love.

But why is it that we are so strenuously seeking the temporary investments and give so little time and thought to the real enduring investments? We know that shrouds have no pockets, - that some day we must give up every cent we have and that to-morrow may be the day. Why is it that with this knowledge we continually seek to accumulate more of material things when enduring investments can be secured only as we give up more of such things? It is by distributing more, instead of by accumulating more, first of ourselves and secondly of property, that we make investments which live forever.

The Remedy

As stated in the preceding chapter, one reason why we all have the wrong point of view may be that money and things are so wrongly emphasized in the public schools and colleges. The world is going mad on hiring things done. Every one wants to hire and buy rather than save or create. This especially applies to the education of our children and the care of our families. Just as soon as our children begin to know us, we ship them to kindergarten, and then to public schools, and then away to a preparatory school and college.

Fathers and mothers were supposed to be the teachers of their children. The home was supposed to be the school house. Children begin school altogether too young. Family prayers are infinitely more important than French or Geometry. The woodbox is of greater educational value than Chemistry or Algebra. The subjects taught in our public schools are probably beneficial; but they do not compare in importance with those religious fundamental qualities which our young people so lack to-day. It is not more schools that we need to-day; but it is more religion in the schools which we already have and in the homes which form the background of our entire educational system.

We fathers should give our families more time rather than more money. Our children now need more counsel and comradeship rather than more stocks and bonds. We are putting all the ship's ballast on one side and if we are not careful the ship will soon capsize. The solution of our investment troubles - as well as of our labor troubles - will come only as we give more of ourselves to our children and our employees. Both children and wage workers need money; but money alone will neither satisfy nor save either.

An Appeal

The educational system for men is rapidly being reformed. Experiments which the Babson Institute is making at Wellesley Hills bear great promise. Men are being taught by doing, classes are being turned into conferences, and through correspondence courses, both teacher and student make rapid progress. Yet there is a great opportunity for improvement. Fathers must learn to spend very much more money on their sons' education if they are to insist that some one else shall give it.

The present educational system for girls is improving, although the modern tendency of training girls merely for industry and office is criminal. No wonder there is each year one divorce to every ten marriages; - and this has increased 20 per cent. since we have been keeping the figures.

Yes, the real reason why most of us are so unable to make enduring investments when the opportunity arises, is because we were never trained to do it. The truth is that many are being trained in making the opposite kind. Let us not continue longer to make such a mistake. Let us not give greater emphasis to the unessentials than to the essentials. Let us not become hypnotized with the false idea of possession, remembering that production and not possession, that life and not money, should be the aim of our efforts. Finally, let us seek to produce with our time, influence, and money those qualities and other things which will make the world truly healthier, happier, and more prosperous. Then and then only shall we make the most enduring investments for ourselves, our families, and our communities.