Every little boy and girl, and, of course, every man and woman, of the colored race in America should carry a life insurance policy of some kind in some reliable company. In this matter the old people, as in some other things, ought to set the example for the young, but there are some reasons, growing chiefly out of their previous condition of slavery, why our mothers and fathers have not, as a rule, taken very largely to the business of having their lives insured. But because our parents have been negligent in this matter there is no reason why the younger generation should be. Life insurance is a good thing, boys and girls--one of the best things in the world. American life insurance companies alone pay to policy-holders or estates of policy-holders over one hundred million dollars annually. Only a very small and almost insignificant portion of this vast sum goes into the hands of colored people, and for the reason that very few colored people carry life insurance policies. [Illustration: TAKING OUT A POLICY.] Now use a little common sense about this matter. Whatever is good in life insurance for other races is good for our race; whatever in life insurance benefits other races will benefit our race. In business as in education, whatever is good for a white man is good for a black man. I would, therefore, urge every boy and girl to join a life insurance company, and where your mothers and fathers are not insured I would urge you to do your utmost to persuade them to join at once. For one reason, a life insurance policy is not expensive. You might as well talk of the expense of buying bank stock, or the expense of putting your money into a savings bank or any other safe place as to speak of the expense of keeping up a life insurance policy. It is accumulation and not expense. Every dollar put into life insurance is a dollar saved to yourself or your estate. For another reason life insurance is a good business investment. Carefully collected statistics on file in Washington City prove that investments in life insurance are much safer and yield much larger returns than money placed in a savings bank. When you are older you will perhaps be able to make these comparisons for yourself. For the present you can take my word for it. A third reason, life insurance is cheap. You can in an instant create a capital of $1,000, though you may be ever so poor, by laying aside only a few cents a week. Young people chew up and drink up and smoke up and frolic up more money every week than would be sufficient to protect them against the rainy days that must come to everybody. And, then, life insurance has a character value. It makes a young man a better man; it makes a young woman a better woman; that is to say, it makes them more economical, more business-like, happier, and, I believe, it will make them live longer.