y to the association. Then by the method
of payment of dues the debt is, from the first month, steadily reduced
and the security for the loan therefore grows constantly better.

(b) Premiums are collected in addition, sometimes in the form of a
higher rate of interest, but the practice of charging premiums has
been mostly abandoned and the total amount of premiums now constitutes
less than 1 per cent of all payments from members.

(c) Fines for delinquency also are less commonly imposed now and
constitute a small fraction of 1 per cent of total payments.

(d) Deductions are made on account of withdrawal before the maturity
of the shares; under these circumstances it is usual to pay a portion
but not all of the accumulated profits, sometimes a proportion
increasing as the shares approach maturity.

Different plans have been and still are followed in respect to the
method of issuing the shares. Under the _terminating plan_ all
the shares begin and mature at the same time (for all members that
continue to the end). Whereupon the association dissolves or starts
anew. The chief difficulty in this plan is that the association has
too few funds to loan at the beginning of its career, and a surplus
of unloanable funds as it nears the maturity of the series. It is
therefore necessary to encourage or to compel the withdrawal of
non-borrowing members on the payment of estimated profits to date.

The better to remedy this difficulty the _serial plan_ was devised,
by which new series of stock are issued at intervals--yearly,
half-yearly, quarterly, and even oftener.

Sec. 12. #The continuous plan.# A further development is the continuous
plan (usually called the _permanent_ or the Dayton plan), by which
much greater flexibility is attained in the organization. Shares
of stock may be subscribed for at any time, each man's separate
subscription of shares being treated as a separate series, and
maturing each at its own time. There is thus, after an association has
been for some time in operation, a continuous stream of new members
(or new subscriptions) flowing into the association, and a continuous
outflow of shareholders whose shares have matured. The maturing shares
of borrowing members discharge their indebtedness to the association;
the maturing shares of non-borrowing members are paid in money, or
may (if the association has use for the funds) be left as an
interest-bearing loan.

Additional funds are obtained when needed