Boys and girls, I suppose you are quite familiar with what is known as buying things on the instalment plan. You have seen people in your own neighborhood--perhaps in your own homes--buy things that way. Chairs, tables, bed-steads, rugs, pictures, things for the kitchen and things to wear, and many other things are bought that way. Most people think they are getting a great bargain when they are able to buy things by paying a small amount in cash as the first payment--say fifty-cents or a dollar--and then pay the balance in small weekly or monthly payments. And especially do some of our mothers and fathers think that they are getting a great bargain, if they are able to buy things they want for “no money down” and so much a week. In such matters, my dear boys and girls, your parents are making a terrible mistake and are setting you a wrong example. They lose sight of the fact, when they fall into the habit of buying anything and everything on the instalment plan or on the “no money down” plan, that a day of reckoning is sure to come; that the time comes when they must pay for everything that they have been led into buying. Thoughtful people--wise people--prefer to pay “money down” when they buy anything; and this habit of paying as they go helps them in at least two ways. First, it saves money in their pockets, and, secondly, it keeps them from running in debt. Children, these men who come to your homes with great packs on their backs always charge you double for whatever they may sell you on the “no money down” plan--no matter what it is! That is why they are willing to make the terms so “easy,” as they say. In the end they profit by their schemes, and nobody else does profit by their schemes except these peddlers. You ought to avoid them as you would a wild beast. You do not know now, boys and girls, what a terrible thing debt is. I honestly hope that you may never know, and if you will take the advice of older and wiser persons I am sure you will always be free from the bondage of debt. Not long ago, I saw two women standing at the window of one of these “no money down” or “hand-me-down” stores. One said to the other-- “I just believe I’ll get me a new cloak this winter. My cloak didn’t cost but three dollars, and it is so old and shabby that I am ashamed to wear it in the street. Look at that beauty over there in the corner. Only ten dollars and ‘no money down’.” “Yes;” said her companion, “but I guess the money will have to come down sometime.” “Oh, of course; but, you know, I won’t have to pay it all at once. I could probably get it for fifty cents a week.” “Well, why don’t you just save the fifty cents a week until you have enough to pay ‘cash down’ for the cloak, and in that way you would save, I am sure, three or four dollars; because you can buy that same cloak for six dollars or seven dollars in cash.” “Oh,” said the woman, “I’d never save it as I would if I had the cloak and knew that I just had to pay for it.”