Mr. Sikes tells us that he had already begun to feel, that though much might be done for the working classes by kindly and temperate advice, the greatest share of the work of their social elevation would have to be achieved by their own individual efforts; this feeling, moreover, was strongly confirmed by reading a passage in the late Bishop of Chester's (Archbishop Sumner's) _Records of Creation_: "The only true secret of assisting the poor is to make them agents in bettering their own condition;" and on this maxim, as a principle, he resolved solely to act. Mr. Sikes came to the conclusion that his work might well lay in endeavouring to stimulate the poor to more provident habits; and that, if there was anything in the constitution of such societies as were formed expressly to foster these habits which stood in the way of the poor man, the obstacles ought either to be quickly removed, or some new organization must be planned to effect this purpose. Though Mr. Sikes never seems to have had anything to do with the Huddersfield Savings Bank--having abstained, through motives of delicacy, owing to his connexion with an ordinary bank in the same town--he was thoroughly conversant with the system, and therefore fully appreciated the difficulties in the way. He was not long in finding out how utterly impossible it was to adapt the system, as it then stood, to the well-known wants and requirements of the workman; and he early turned his attention to some auxiliary machinery which he thought would meet the case of the younger people, if of no other. He truly held, that if he could do anything to inculcate the growth of frugality in young people, their habits would increase with their years and grow, in spite of the many inconveniences, amounting as they did to absolute discouragements, which they might meet with afterwards in their connexion with the majority of the old class of Savings Banks.