e does it disqualify us for giving advice. While a lad, I was
at play, one day, with my mates, when two gentlemen observing us, one
of them said to the other; 'Do you think you ever acted as foolishly as
those boys do?' 'Why yes; I suppose I did;' was the reply. 'Well,' said
the other, 'I never did;--I _know_ I never did.'

Both of these persons has the name of parent, but he who could not
believe he had ever acted like a child himself, is greatly destitute of
the proper parental spirit. He never--or scarcely ever--puts himself to
the slightest inconvenience to promote, directly, the happiness of the
young, even for half an hour.

He supposes every child ought to be grave, like himself. If he sees the
young engaged in any of those exercises which are really adapted to
their years, he regards it as an entire loss of time, besides being
foolish and unreasonable. He would have them at work, or at their
studies. Whereas there is scarcely any thing that should give a parent
more pleasure than to see his children, in their earliest years,
enjoying that flow of spirits, which leads them forth to active,
vigorous, blood-stirring sports.

Of all persons living, he who does not remember that he has once been
young, is the most completely disqualified for giving youthful counsel.
He obtrudes his advice occasionally, when the youth is already under
temptation, and borne along with the force of a vicious current; but
because he disregards it, he gives him up as heedless, perhaps as
obstinate. If advice is afterwards asked, his manners are cold and
repulsive. Or perhaps he frowns him away, telling him he never _follows_
his advice, and therefore it is useless to _give_ it. So common is it
to treat the young with a measure of this species of roughness, that I
cannot wonder the maxim has obtained that the young, generally, 'despise
counsel.' And yet, I am fully convinced, no maxim is farther from the
truth.

When we come to the very close of life, we cannot transfer, in a single
moment, that knowledge of the world and of human nature which an
experience of 70 years has afforded us. If, therefore, from any cause
whatever, we have not already dealt it out to those around us, it is
likely to be lost;--and lost for ever. Now is it not a pity that what
the young would regard as an invaluable treasure, could they come at it
in such a manner, and at such seasons, as would be _agreeable_ to them,
and that, too, which the old are naturally