TO A YOUNG MAN

53. In the foregoing Letter, I have given my advice to a Youth. In
addressing myself to you, I am to presume that you have entered upon
your present stage of life, having acted upon the precepts contained in
that letter; and that, of course, you are a sober, abstinent,
industrious and well-informed young man. In the succeeding letters,
which will be addressed to the _Lover_, the _Husband_, the _Father_ and
the _Citizen_, I shall, of course, have to include my notion of your
duties as a _master_, and as a person employed by _another_. In the
present letter, therefore, I shall confine myself principally to the
conduct of a young man with regard to the management of his means, or
money.

54. Be you in what line of life you may, it will be amongst your
misfortunes if you have not time properly to attend to this matter; for
it very frequently happens, it has happened to thousands upon thousands,
not only to be ruined, according to the common acceptation of the word;
not only to be made poor, and to suffer from poverty, in consequence of
want of attention to pecuniary matters; but it has frequently, and even
generally, happened, that a want of attention to these matters has
impeded the progress of science, and of genius itself. A man, oppressed
with pecuniary cares and dangers, must be next to a miracle, if he have
his mind in a state fit for intellectual labours; to say nothing of the
temptations, arising from such distress, to abandon good principles, to
suppress useful opinions and useful facts; and, in short, to become a
disgrace to his kindred, and an evil to his country, instead of being an
honour to the former and a blessing to the latter. To be poor and
independent, is very nearly an impossibility.