The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-06-16
THE IDEALS OF YOUTH.

During this month of June great
number of young men and women
will go out from our school and col
leges to engage in the active work
of life for which they have been pre-
pairing during their student days.
1t is customary to look upon the
newly fledged graduate with sort
of cynical tolerance; to laugh at his
enthusiasms and his ideals and to
speculate on the length Of time it will
take the hard knocks of business to
drive his fancy notions out of his
head.
1t is true that the boy or the girl
who has won a diploma after four
yaars of hard study does not know all
there is to learn, and the graduation
essay or Grafton often assumes to
settle problems that have baffled the
wisest minds, but the average grad
uate knows a great deal more than
we older critics knew when we
marched proudly forward to receive
our diplomas ten, twenty of thirty
years ago. as the case may be.
OF course there are no substitutes
in the curricula of any of our insti-
buttons of learning for the homely
old virtues of industry and thrift and
sobriety and common sense. But adj
ding to these virtues the knowledge
taught in the schools today, the grad
uate OF 1910 has better chance
to achieve success than any that
have gone before him.
In all the advice that is given to
graduates, much of which is excel
lent, there is one class that should be
rejected and that is the sneering
counsel of the cynic who would dis
all ideals, who would make life a sor-
did strife for money and position, to
be attained as quickly as possible
with little care for the methods en-
ployed to attain what he calls sue
cess.
There is no life so happy, there
! is no life so useful, as that Of the
man who does not lose the ideals OF
his youth. With increasing wisdom and
experience they may be modified and
broadened, but they remain always an
inspiration to noble living and wor-
thy service. Who are the men who
scoG at high ideals? Some of them
have made fortunes in business by
means of illegal rebates or short
weights and false measurements, OF
by selling adulterated foods and med
icines. Some of them are in politics
mot for their health, but for the
graft that may be obtained by the
sale of their legislative votes
or influence, by obtaining fat" con.
tracts, for the sake of gratifying am.
bition by the purchase of honors thai
never would be bestowed by an un.
purchased electorate. Some of then
are devotees of the grosser forms
of pleasure and at the end, will
wrecked bodies and blackened soul.
look back upon life as a miserable
failure and a heartless mockery.
Deep in the heart, like the sa
cred fire on the altar of the innel
sanctuary of temple, the ideals o
life should be cherished, and nothini
should be allowed to extinguish them
neither failure nor success, neithe,
business nor pleasure, neither jo!
nor grief,
The men and the women who max,
the world better, who accomplish
great deeds of usefulness, who Leaf
/ their fellows out of narrow dwelling
! places into fairer fields and wide
horizons are always men and womel
who keep high ideals ever befor
them.
= For every person who misses tn
mark by reason of becoming a Wis
ionary, an impractical enthusiast,
, thousand fail because they lose thei
1 noble ideals OF God and humanit
and loving service.
When greed and avarice, selfish
|. ness and evil influence enter, tn
: ideals of youth depart. May Go
= pity the man who cannot endure be
ing alone because he is ashamed =.
stand face to face with his own sou
a There is no honor high enough, n
v fortune great enough, to compensat
e man or woman for the sacrifice c
: high ideals and the loss of self res
i. pect.