The late Dr. Aiton said that his father brought up a still larger family
on only half the income of the Earl of Buchan. The following dedication,
prefixed to his work on "Clerical Economics," is worthy of being
remembered: "This work is respectfully dedicated to a Father, now in the
eighty-third year of his age, who, on an income which never exceeded a
hundred pounds yearly, educated, out of a family of twelve children,
four sons to liberal professions, and who has often sent his last
shilling to each of them, in their turn, when they were at college."

The author might even cite his own case as an illustration of the
advantages of thrift. His mother was left a widow, when her youngest
child--the youngest of eleven--was only three weeks old. Notwithstanding
a considerable debt on account of a suretyship, which was paid, she
bravely met the difficulties of her position, and perseveringly overcame
them. Though her income was less than that of many highly paid working
men, she educated her children well, and brought them up religiously and
virtuously. She put her sons in the way of doing well, and if they have
not done so, it was through no fault of hers.

Hume, the historian, was a man of good family; but being a younger
brother, his means were very small. His father died while he was an
infant; he was brought up by his mother, who devoted herself entirely to
the rearing and educating of her children. At twenty-three, young Hume
went to France to prosecute his studies. "There," says he, in his
Autobiography, "I laid down that plan of life which I have steadily and
successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply
my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to
regard every object as contemptible, except the improvement of my
talents in literature." The first book he published was a complete