THE GENUS HOMO.

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 24, 8 September 1894, Page 11

THE GENUS HOMO.

UP TO DATE. While Madame S. Grand, and others of that ilk declare that man has degenerated as the world grew older, we might find it worth considering whether he is any better or worse than he ever was. To judge by the annals of the past, he is no better—we feel too charitable to say he is any worse. In the lower ranks of living nature looking after £ number one ’ is merely the instinct of self-preservation ; but nature and education are ever at variance, and while man is essentially and naturally a selfish animal, educated and trained up to the rules of the day, he has the grace to be ashamed of it and conceal it slightly, but it is still there, like the fly in the precious ointment, ready to turn up at any moment.

A good man might he truly called dod’s masterpiece —-one to whom we can look up to as better than ourselves, but most of this description are older men than our compeers,— men who, it may be, have learned their lesson in the school of life, and profited by it. I wonder if the young man of to-day, with his consequential air, his high collar and budding moustache, between which and his walking stick his valuable attention is divided, will become an object of veneration, even with the lapse of •time. I doubt it. To every rule

there are of course exceptions, but ihe majority of the young , men we meet are made up of ignorance, impudence and conceit ; —ignorant because too conceited to learn. The impudence follows as a matter of course. I verily believe if this expanding Lord of Creation were to hear a girl describe a ‘ hark-hangel ’ as the being with whom she had fallen in love, he would twist the description round, till he came to the conclusion it was really himself she admired, but was too shy to say so. Speak of woman’s vanity after that —it is nothing in comparison with man’s.

You cannot teach him. He will listen to all your lectures with perfect equanimity, agreeing with all you say, but turning it over to some ‘other fellow,’'’ sublimely unconscious you could possibly mean him. His feelings are like a rhinoceros’ hide, bullet proof, and sarcasm rolls off him like dew off a cabbage leaf—the only result is fun to him and annoyance to yourself. Let him be —he will find his own level, but if he imagines he is a ■ little god ’in the eyes of all the girls as he walks along with a great ugly pipe in his mouth, he is greatly mistaken, for some, at any rate, know how to estimate the value of his manhood. I am not at all afraid of hurting the feelings of the dear boys, for, as I said in the beginning of my article, there are exceptions to every mile, and of course each one will think he is one of those exceptions. But is not the training of a boy greatly at fuult ? In so many homes he is made the chief of the community. His sisters are told off to wait on him. In a little while he calls for it as his right, and the boy is ruined —his natural selfishness and egotism are developed, and he grows into that contemptible creature —a selfish and conceited man. E. E. S.