Cases such as the following are found in every prosperous factory community: The father, mother, and six or eight boys and girls, ranging from twelve to twenty odd years, are at work in one mill. Large families are the rule in this class, remember. Now, the adults, if fair weavers, easily average $22.99 apiece per month. The younger members of the family are probably spinners, and average about $14 each. This family, then, that in the old life of the farm thought themselves fortunate indeed to handle $100 in cash throughout a year, now bring home something like $175 every month! Is it strange to you that extravagance seizes upon this metamorphosed household? If the sudden transition from pennilessness to plethoric pocket-books did not lead in itself straight to spendthrift living, the precedents of their neighbors would speedily teach the trait. So the housewife loads the table with luxuries hitherto unknown; the pretty girl is tempted into all the caprices of dress that her little Vanity Fair may flaunt, while the father and brother can scarcely tell whither their dollars speed on such swift wings. [Illustration: THE LYCEUM, PELZER, S. C. ] Yet this wastefulness, too, is but a phase, destined to gradual elimination in the development of the process by which an agricultural people are converted into a manufacturing one. With all their illiteracy this class is not devoid of understanding; and when a certain bewilderment of these early years is past, it will be borne in upon them in countless ways, by their school privileges, their larger experience, their clearer views of the outside world, by their own innate manhood, indeed, that there are far other uses for hard-earned money than to be lavished on mere food, clothing and shelter. Many of them are already opening their eyes to the fact that for an abundance of things to eat and wear, they have bartered a certain independence and manliness which are fostered by agricultural pursuits, even the lowliest, and which breed sturdier virtues than mere factory dependents can hope to transmit to their children. Awakening perceptions such as these are leading to different results: to a rescinding of extravagance always; sometimes a return to the farm; occasionally to the laying aside of money or investing it in a home just outside the factory property. But in most cases I find a steadfast purpose growing,—to work straight on where they are for the present, and save every cent possible to educate the coming generation and set their feet in the path that leads to freedom. I have even found several young men and women putting aside money to go to school on when enough is saved, and many go to school and work through alternate half years. But how can they save money? clamor those who have been studying the comparative wage-scale of Northern and Southern factories, without acquaintance with the actual conditions of the latter. By reasonable economy, is the answer in this case as others.