OUR MODERN YOUTH.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 100, 12 October 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

OUR MODERN YOUTH .

(From Fraser's Magazine.) *~ ~ ■ £ (Continued.) , "In weighing the good and evil effect of democratic opinions we do not always consider their social and their political influence sufficiently apart. It is so much easier, there isTso much less expenditure of thoughtin taking-one view only of a question; that' it" is little wonjder if opinions a V outrance ax commonly the fashion, and that to -discriminate and go a certain length with different parties, is held to be timid, if not uncandid. We must, however, submit to the taunt ; for while acknowledging fully all the benefits of the progress of, liberal opinions, we cannot accept as advantageous to society all the consequences which they have occasioned. The political advance of democracy, even when threatening danger, is always an earnest movement, is one in which the widest interests of humanity are concerned ; but the social movement is mixed up with every feeling of petty jealousy and ambition. In this country we owe many blessings to the fact that our free institutions have not been the conquests of a revolutionary democracy, but were struggled for and established by a class of men whose position being already secure, had socially nothing to contend for. Thus political aims have been kept far more free from petty views of social jealousy than in some other countries. Freedom has been our watchword, not equality. The one is a noble aspiration nobly realised • the other the baseless dream of morbid mindsj blind to the distinction between great and : little ends, between that which is necessary for the full development of human nature, and that which nature herself has made impossible. But the modern -spirit of rebellion tends to this unhealty view of all privilege and distinction ; and it is well to have courage to take up the unpopular side, and to show the folly 'that sees oppression in questions of precedence, and believes that virtue and talent exist in inverse ratio to the opportunities for cultivating either ! We must -remember that it is in its trifling aspect ttat the spirit of an age works upon the multitude of minds by whom its depth and earnestness are unfelt. Thus the young may grow up democratic in obedience to the general, social influence around them, without being one whit the more lovers of true liberty, without perceiving that the fopperies of radicalism have no more to do with freedom than the ceremonial of a church service with religion. In the class we have been speaking of, youthful arrogance does not show itself in contempt for social position, simply because they either possess it themselves, or are connected closely enough with those who do to reap its advantages. Hut if they were capable of reflection, they would see that their want of reverence for what is above them — their rebellion against constituted authorities and accepted conventionalisms — Ought also, if consistently carried out, to strike at the root of the very distinctions and privileges some of them are proud of, and some vainly covet. The off-hand independence they exhibit is, then, more natural and intelligible in America than in the English fashionable world, and would be more intelligible still in a lower class of society than in those of either country who have possessed the privileges of c u nation and gentle braeding. Since inequalities must ever exist, gladly would we respect the social distinctions that give an assured place and weight in society to those who, as a class, are more likely to exercise a refining influence upon it. Till human nature is very different from what it has hitherto been, the minds of most men will have an idol. Better, then, let it be anything that involves an idea, a sentiment, as the prestige of birth undoubtedly does, than the golden calf of Mammon. Here is the god that inherits the worship of every fallen idol ! One object of veneration after another is destroyed, and the material, sensual enjoyments of life intrude their reality more and more as each ideal fades ; and wealth, which is the key to their possession, becomes the one object of desire and respect. The golden demon enters the heart thus freed from all other spiritual influences, and truly " the last state of that man is worse than the first." Just as the condition of the young mind has been influenced by the progress of democratic opinions, so also have the latter influenced the offorts making so actively now in favor of female emancipation. Men began the crusade against privilege and authority : it was hardly to be expected that, when attacked as between class and class, they would be left to stand unquestion ed between one half of the human race and the other. Woman caught the infection of freedom ; and what had been before only the cry of the really oppressed among them, baearne the general cry of all who felt they were within reach of oppression. It was no longer here and there a wronged woman claiming justice against her tyrant : it was the multitude of woman standing up to claim that tyranny should no longer be a favored institution — fain would they have said that it should no longer be possible. . And steadily and earnestly, with perseverance against difficulties, and patience against ridicule, have they worked their onward way, till views, deemed visionary and dangerous a few years ago, are accepted ; and the warm sympathy of [men has offen been enlisted in favor of what at first was supposed to be subyersive of their interests. Never, indeed, can their objects be fully attained ; for never, we fear, will might cease to be right, nor law be able to reach the abuse of power screened from public cognizance by all that makes

home sacred. But we may hope that other generations of men, growing up under the different tone of opinion this movement has given birtli to, may feel shame at the thought of such oppression of the weak by the strong as their fathers practised with a safe conscience, and may see that to be unmanly ah<il base w v hiehwa* considered before^s the undouoted privilege of manhood. '-_ But in these efforts, as in the proigress' of^emocracyy We again see -the twofold aspect of a wide movement— the trifling by the side of the earnest agitation, and the danger lest that should exercise most influence over the young. Here also we see the paltry struggle for insignificant objects, ths, petty jealousies showing how needful it is that sound minds should exert S3lvestokeeothelead,andnotallow'themselves mi rely to be carried forward by the general movement. To this foolish phase of the struggle for freedom among women belong the frivolous display of masculine tasks and pursuits ; i the boast of equality with men, which we might at least expect to see proved before so much is built upon it; the impatience of home occupations ; the forgetfulness of all the differences by which nature points to a different vocation for the two sexes, and other sad mistakes which threaten to mar the good which the wiser efforts have wrought. Mostly, however, does this frivolous aspect of the movement show itself in mere follies of dress and tone, in mvtsculine manners, in contempt for conventionalities, in the rude disclaiming of protection, in a general defiant tone and violent esprit de corps, the principal effect of 'which upon sober minds is to recal how much more numerous, after all, in their own recollection, are the instances of men who were not tyrants to their wives, than those who were. It is, in short, in all that assemblage of unfeminine follies which lead us daily toexiect the announcement of anew amazon kingdom, and mike us look forward, not without comfoit, to the time when these vociferous victims shall go forth to found it. It is|as.-erted even that we only see a reflex of this same folly in that most melancholy phenomenon of our day— the fast young lady ; that this painful exhibition is only part of the general defiance of all authority and established conventions, part of that protest against all that has been which we see in so many forms. If it be so, we ought not, perhaps, to be surprisi d tbat in the hands of the ignoraut and frivolous it should assume a form in which self-respect is sacrificed among other antiquated things. When young women who have no ostensible occupation but amusement, assume a peculiar mode of dress and manner, the natural supposition, according to old-fashioned notions, would be that it is intended to secure admiration from the -other sex; but we are assured that in this case, far from being intended to attract, it is meant to show a noble independence of their approval ; that it is to defy the opinions of men that these champions of their oppressed sex wear impudent hats, and talk vulgar slang. How this supposition is made to agfee with the abject craving for an establishment, which is not apparently less felt in this section of the female fashionable world than in any other, is a point too knotty for the uninitiated to solve. We only hail with joy the indirect praise of our younger countrymen, which is implied in the fact that these things are supposed rather to offend than attract them. It would be too painful a, reflection for any lover of Old England could we believe that young men were in any danger of forming their ideal of woman upon such models. So far we are reassured. But if, on the other hand, this habi ual contempt for feminine decorum ; if this unwomanly aping of male follies; if this uublushing courting of attention by a style of dress and manner which allows a wide scope to conjecture as to the kind of attention that will be acceptable ; if these are, indeed, parts of a protest in favor of female emancipation, then truly it is time that earnest-minded women should rise and put down the insolent pretension to fellowship. The aspiration for freedom which goes masquerading in bold attire, and shows its capacity for self-government by compromising all a woman should hold most dear for the sake of a new excitement — such aspirations cannot too soon be attacked by any weapons which the blunted sensibilities of the pretenders will allow them to feel. The only indulgence they deserve is owing to the far heavier which falls on parents who could allow such inclinations to develop unheeded, and drop the authority or the influence which should hive restrained them looking on apparently unmoved at evil, which the young rush^ into, but are themselves too ignorant to •fathom, But now, when we have done, many will say to us, * Is the folly worth so much serious indignation? Granting the conceit, the arrogance, the absurdities of both sexes, are these manifestations of youthful ignorance a fitsubjictfor such grave rebuke V As such only, certainly not. If it were a passing fashion merely among fashionable young ladies, and boys dreaming they were men, it would not, indeed, be worth more than a passing laugh. But faults of this nature seem to us to taint the moral and intellectual constitution ; and those suffering the taint, though now boys and girls, hold in their hands the destiny, for many years to come, of all we hold dear in national life. We live in grave times, and in the" future many an arduous struggle seems already shadowed forth, in which the youth of to-day must bear their part, and bring honour or disgrace upon their class and their country — struggles which will need qualities less easily roused at the sudden call of danger

than the courage, and manliness the most' 'apparently effeminate among us have never yetfailedin. Hardy games and wild sports may suffice to counteract for that purpose the eviPznfluence ofluxury and self-indulgence, but Eiigland may need yet higher service from her sons ; and may we not well ask I what, in this arrogant, self-sufficient J ooyhood, is preparing for a manhood of | ! care, of thought, and responsibility ? ' i What generous action- can we hope J from the riper years ofone, who, in the age of illusions, is giving up to matter-of-fact worldliness ; who, in the age of trust, is proud of being suspicious ; who, in the age of inexperience, is .full of self-assurance ? What exalted sense of national interests is promised by the career of one who begins life by disbelieving in earnest ambition, to whom heroic action or disinterested patriotism seem mere ignorance of the world ? What course of social or political improvement can we expect from one j whose small self is his standard of humane achievement — to whom the ex- j perience of age inspires no respect, to whom the utterances of genius are as mere words submitted to his criticism, and fame a childish dream — whose real criterion is the gold it earns ? What great or noble thing dare we hope from one to whom, in the very season of poetry and emotion, reverence is unknown, and who bows not in silent respect before moral or intellectual greatness ; one who, if brought into society with all whom the grateful homage of generations has stamped immortal, would probably call Newton a muff, and Shakespeare a brick, and forthwith sit undaunted in judgment upen both ? Truly, if such be the prospect opened to us by the boasted education of the nineteenth century, it is not too soon to look seriously into the question ; it is not too soon to seek around us for some methods of dealing with the young which shall look a litt'e deeper than those now in vogue into principles of human nature and the best interests of society.