m of education in which I
did not wholly believe; I saw little by little that the rigid old
system of education was a machine which, if it made a highly
accomplished product out of the best material, wasted an enormous
amount of boyish interest and liveliness, and stultified the feebler
sort of mind. Then came the care of a boarding-house, close relations
with parents, a more real knowledge of the infinite levity of boy
nature. I became mixed up with the politics of the place, the chance of
more ambitious positions floated before me; the need for tact,
discretion, judiciousness, moderation, tolerance emphasized itself. I
am here outlining my own experience, but it is only one of many similar
experiences. I became a citizen without knowing it, and my place in the
world, my status, success, all became definite things which I had to
secure.

The cares, the fears, the anxieties of middle life lie for most men and
women in this region; if people are healthy and active, they generally
arrive at a considerable degree of equanimity; they do not anticipate
evil, and they take the problems of life cheerfully enough as they
come; but yet come they do, and too many men and women are tempted to
throw overboard scornfully and disdainfully the dreams of youth as a
luxury which they cannot afford to indulge, and to immerse themselves
in practical cares, month after month, with perhaps the hope of a
fairly careless and idle holiday at intervals. What I think tends to
counteract this for many people is love and marriage, the wonder and
amazement of having children of their own, and all the offices of
tenderness that grow up naturally beside their path. But this again
brings a whole host of fears and anxieties as well--arrangements, ways
and means, household cares, illnesses, the homely stuff of life, much
of it enjoyed, much of it cheerfully borne, and often very bravely and
gallantly endured. It is out of this simple material that life has to
be constructed. But there is a twofold danger in all this. There is a
danger of cynicism, the frame of mind in which a man comes to face
little worries as one might put up an umbrella in a shower--"Thou
know'st 'tis common!" Out of that grows up a rude dreariness, a
philosophy which has nothing dignified about it, but is merely a
recognition of the fact that life is a poor affair, and that one cannot
hope to have things to one's mind. Or there is a dull frame of mind
which implies a meek resignati