New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-07-02
4 W0RD 10 COLLEGE GRADUATES.

| cStly congress.
4 Word TO COLLEGE GRADUATES.
| One word more to the college graduates who
are swarming back TO their homes all over the
country in this first week in July. The care
and leadership of the Nation will fall for forty
years into their hands some day, so that it is
worth while to guard them at the outset against
any mistake which may make their lives poorer
or their characters less strong. Just such
| mistake they are apt to make now. Their
| school life is over. ana they have been rejoicing
| thereat for weeks; their letters, talk, and even
| OratiOns have uDcOnsciOusly been full OF
triumph that they were going back to their old
homes and places, men and women. But now
| that they are back they find the home Is not
the same and they cannot find their old place
They never will find it again. The bearded
man who comes back to the farm or town
house from Yale or the local college, his head
full OF seething ideas borrowed everywhere,
| from the old Greeks, the Germans, down to
Darwin and Huxley, is different person in
mind and body from the boy who went out four
years ago, with the creed or opinions which
he had inherited from his father. Now that he
is back it is, as "a rule, with this father more
than anyone else that he finds himself
stranger. With people outside, even with the
mere passengers on the cars he can get along
well enough he belongs to their generation.
There is between them only the light touch
and-go intercourse of common general inter
ests. 1t is with the old people that he cannot
adjust himself. The more close and dear the
feeling between them, the more sensitive he is
to the change. How cramped their creed u.s.
how far behind the actual condition Of affairs III
the world are their opinions and their habits
Why did he never all this befOrc2 1t is not
only i'll religion in politics, i'll philosophy that
he sees their old-fashioned shortcomings, but
he finds himself critcising their dress, man
ners, their modes of speech. The difference
between himself and them, now first apparent,
does not strike him with "a sci sc OF pathos; 1t
irrltates him. The difference always exists, 10
matter what the class or breeding OF father and
son. One generation is not like another. But
it is greater in this country, where the perpetual
effort is going to rise, to push the children
into social grade higher than that on which
their parents stand. The peculiarties in speech
or manner which, when the son is middle-aged
and the old folks are gone to their rest, will be
remembered by HIM with half-amused tender
The repulson is just as strong on the other
side. No matter how proud or fond the father
may be of his son. he is nevertheless a stranger
to him. Under all his pride and affection he
stands on guard against him this is a new
man coming into the closest relations with him,
and he does not yet know how to deal with
him. Added to this is the unwillingness which
most fathers feel to give up the authority OF
twenty years, to content themselves with ad-
yisng instead of commanding this creature
who owes his life to them, whom they taught to
walk and talk and think, who even now is de-
pendent on them for his support. There is no
crisis in the lives of father and son more trying
than this read justment of their relations. III
there are good sense, delicate feeling and tact
on both Sides 1T is passed almost without no.
tice but in most cases it produces an estrange-
ment which is not removed for years. In the
meantime the younger man loses the help which
the experience of the older one would have
given him. For, however superior the son may
be in knowledge Of books and OF the tendencies
of his time, there is n wisdom which the most
ignorant man gains from experience, from
simply passing through phases of feeling and
life, which he can Dever get by mere study or
observation.
Don't let the young fellow then, in this his
Homecoming be too much intoxicated with
his new 9Th and knowledge. He does not,
it is true, need to go to his father any longer
for orders concerning his clothes or the use OF
his time or choice of his friends but the old
man who sits silent at the head of the table
while he mOnOpOllzes the conversation has no
doubt in his brain some theory Of life, the slow
accreton of many years, which he never has
given to his immature boy but which may be
worth quite as much to HIM now for everyday
use as the formulated PHILOSOPHERS OF Plato or
Kant. Certainly no other human beng will
give such fruit of his life to him with so much
anxious affection. For his own sake therefore,
let him see whether the governor" cannot
bestow on him something more lasting than
checks Another hint. There is nothing more
painful among the inevitable pains of age than
the consciousness of having outlived our use
funess. The old man, in even the most atlec-
tionate families, is too often thrust aside by his
busy sons. q lie has borne his part it is time
he should rest" he is told, when all the time he
Is eager still to bear his part, to feel that he is
standing shoulder to shoulder with the living
and not laid aside to prepare for the coffin.
Keep him beside you, boys. You will not lose
by it. Take the old father and mother into
your confidence, into your business, your daily
pursuits, especially your amusements. They
gave you life in your youth. You can give
them life in their old age in this way