things, the conflicts
between which have caused most of the disruptions and despondences of
human society, seem for a generation or two to lie in the same
direction."

Are we perhaps at least twice in life's journey dimly conscious of the
needlessness of this disruption and of the futility of the
despondency? Do we feel it first when young ourselves we long to
interrogate the "transfigured few" among our elders whom we believe to
be carrying forward affairs of gravest import? Failing to accomplish
this are we, for the second time, dogged by a sense of lost
opportunity, of needless waste and perplexity, when we too, as adults,
see again the dreams of youth in conflict with the efforts of our own
contemporaries? We see idealistic endeavor on the one hand lost in
ugly friction; the heat and burden of the day borne by mature men and
women on the other hand, increased by their consciousness of youth's
misunderstanding and high scorn. It may relieve the mind to break
forth in moments of irritation against "the folly of the coming
generation," but whoso pauses on his plodding way to call even his
youngest and rashest brother a fool, ruins thereby the joy of his
journey,--for youth is so vivid an element in life that unless it is
cherished, all the rest is spoiled. The most praiseworthy journey
grows dull and leaden unless companioned by youth's iridescent dreams.
Not only that, but the mature of each generation run a grave risk of
putting their efforts in a futile direction, in a blind alley as it
were, unless they can keep in touch with the youth of their own day
and know at least the trend in which eager dreams are driving
them--those dreams that fairly buffet our faces as we walk the city
streets.

At times every one possessed with a concern for social progress is
discouraged by the formless and unsubdued modern city, as he looks
upon that complicated life which drives men almost without their own
volition, that life of ingenuous enterprises, great ambitions,
political jealousies, where men tend to become mere "slaves of
possessions." Doubtless these striving men are full of weakness and
sensitiveness even when they rend each other, and are but caught in
the coils of circumstance; nevertheless, a serious attempt to ennoble
and enrich the content of city life that it may really fill the ample
space their ruthless wills have provided, means that we must call upon
energies other than theirs. When we count over the resources