If companies are honestly and capably conducted, and risks judiciously selected, there is nothing in the experience of life companies to indicate that mortality assessments on the _average_ will be sufficiently burdensome to seriously threaten the permanence of the institution. Where disaster has been visited upon assessment companies, the cause has been easily traceable to incompetent or dishonest conduct of the business, and utter disregard of the foundation principles of all insurance. It has in no instance been fairly chargeable to defects in the system. With the record before us of our best assessment companies, faithfully and competently administered, paying their losses promptly, at a cost to the insured for a term of years, of one third to one half only, of that in level premium companies, what reason is there for the insuring public withdrawing their patronage. But we admit that it is not sound policy to depend upon assessments alone, and this view is held by most if not all, who have studied the subject in its various aspects. While for many years, and perhaps indefinitely, a company might be successfully conducted, if under a competent management, depending solely upon assessments, yet contingencies arc liable to arise in which it will be evident that true conservatism and wise forethought would have held in hand some funds for use without imposing, at that particular time, the burden of an assessment upon the policy holders. The advocates of such conservatism have been met with the argument that it is contrary to the principle of assessment insurance, and a concession to the theory of the level premium plan. But the reply is that the requirements of an assessment company in the form of an emergency or reserve are in no sense comparable with those of a level premium company, and the application of it is upon an entirely different principle, and for an altogether different purpose.