Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1859-12-09
VOL. XIII.
From the Lady's Repository.l
OUR YOUNG GENTLEMEN.
BY REV. JOHN F. MARLAY, A. NJ.

| ting portion of our population formerly d
nominated boys-a word associated with OF
earliest schoolday recollections, but now nea
iy obsolete. In the olden time, when the ma
| ter put on the fercest frown, and thunderet
Silence, boys !" in his oracular, military tom
the individuals addressed, felt the authority
a superior being but the modern polite styl
-" pray, young gentlemen, observe order -
| is so suggestive of equality that the young ger
tlemen addressed, seldom comply with the re
quest. Before the race of boys became ex
tinct, it was considered no disgrace to answe
| in the school-roem or elsewhere to the name O
Harry, Ben or joe Now it is Robinson
Jones and Brown. 1t is plain that boys, as
race, do not at present belong to the institu
| tions of this republic. Whether our youns
gentlemen are an improvement upon the de
| funct class, is a question about which ther,
may be possibly two opinions.
The fair readers of the Repository will no
object, we are sure, to the introduction 0
young men to these pages. Essays upon wo
mans mission, her sphere, education, influence
rights and wrongs, may claim precedence o
other matter, but should not monopolize Who'll
ly work SO extensively read by both sexes
If out of seven hundred convicts in the peni
tentiary of one of our western states, dozer
only are females, and if three-fourths of al
wershiping congregations are women, there
would seem to be sufficient reason for turning
our attention for a while from the gentIer sex
to the opposite. Our young men need atten
tion-they are not, if the honest truth must be
told, doing as well as the other sex in mental
or moral development but, on the contrary
bid fair to become an inefficient, worthless
race.
We shall not be puzzled upon the very
threshold of our subject, with conflicting theo-
ries in regard to mans proper sphere. In the
debating societies of the antediluvians, the ques
ton, Is woman equal to man ? was discussed
doubtless, and decided in the negative for
ever since that remote period of time mans
superiority has been assumed and his duties have
been clearly defined. Colleges and academies
were formerly provided for boys only-the
brothers must be educated thoroughly, by all
means, while sisters drudged at home, or eked
out such a mental culture as the district school
afforded. Now everything is being reversed.
Female education is the popular idea of the
times colleges and seminaries for the girls are
springing up on every side. Woman is in the
ascendant. Our daughters, so long neglected,
are receiving in palatial editices the best solid
and ornamental education possible. The fruits
of this movement are already seen in the va
rious departments of life. Women are our
teachers they edit newspapers, they are prac-
ticing medicine, selling dry-goods, making
speeches, holding conventions, and turning the
world upside down. knowledge is power still,
whether in the hands of woman or man and
it must prove a blessing or curse according
as it is well or i'll guided. The question to be
seriously considered is, whether, in our new
zeal in behalf of femaly education, we are not
overlooking the boys.
Mrs. Stowe is right. Charley is an insti-
tution Hundreds of mothers who read these
pages, and who bave had too frequent oeca-
sions to adopt Davids heart-piercing cry over
his beautiful son, and hundreds more, who are
preparing for similar experience, should feel
this truth in all its latent and apparent mean
ing. Other parents besides Manoah and his
wife have felt like asking, when son was born
to them, g How shall we order the child, and
how shall we do unto him ?"
From the days of Adam to the present pc
riod of time it has probably been the habit of
garrulous old age to complain of the sad de-
generacy of the times but after making due
allowance for the infrmity of our poor weak
humanity, is it not fact, patent to observa-
tion everywhere-a fact staring the world in
the face, that an alarming proportion of the
young men of our times are almost entirely
destitute of the moral purity, strict integrity.
and patient industry essential to success in any
honorable, useful walk of life? Education.
talent, opportunity, they lack not but at the
same time they give no sufficient assurance
that they will fill worthily the place to be va
Gated for them erelong by the fathers, in both
Church and State. ~ hazlae -a-- s14
Our youth pass, with one long stride, from
the nursery to the saloon of fashionable dissi-
patton. They are cultivating moustaches when
they should be cultivating potatoes in the pa
ternal garden. Patent-eather boots and fast
horses are sported at an age far better adapted
to study Of orthography. They talk of
/" mint!juleps" and the governor" when it
should be confined to grammar and elementary
history. To decorate the body in the vulgar
extreme of fashion-to crafty the libidinous
passions--to kill time-to waste money, are
some Of the achievements of multitudes of our
young men. To toll patiently in the busy
marts Of commerce, amid the humming looms
of labor, in the shop, the field, is deemed such a
degradation as not to be thought of. Now such
facts indicate dreadful defect somewhere in
our juvenile training. .5.,e fels
Do we begin right? Will not the sad laxi-
ty of parental authority, which so generally
prevails, go far to account for the mistakes and
failures of our young men? +" The world is
governed too much" has long been favorite
apothegm with certain political writers but
it will not apply to our young gentlemen, who,
in point of fact and "not to put too fine
point on it." are hardly governed at all
There is, indeed, a cruel exercise of authority
which often totally defeats the ends of govern
ment. Parents and padagogues have not sell
dom sown the seeds of almost ineradicable ha-
tired in the minds of the children committed to
their care. The young must learn the lesson
of obedience to legitimate authority, as prima-
ry to all other useful instruction. But is it
not possible to teach this lesson kindly, gently,
and, therefore, the more effectually? 5-
A failure at this, beginning point of educa-
ton, must necessarily prove fatal to all pro-
gress in the right direction. No moral or
intellectual excellence will be developed in our
youth in connection with the spirit of insubor-
dination so apparent in our country at the
present time A father is the heaven-appont-
ed head of his household, the lawgiver and ru-
Ter of his children, and his decisions wisely
formed, should be final and without appeal.
A son who disregards parental law, will, in all
human probability, rebel against civil authori-
ty, and against the law of God. So that if
young men are to be trained for honorable cit
izenship on earth, or for a home in the skies,
the lesson of submission must by some means,
be learned at the very opening of their ife-ca-
reer, f-4Eri-i,r 81. s4..z -,.-ts-e-z,s.-E
Growing ont of this reffactnrv sr,irit and