SELF-HELP. "At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same." -EDWARD YOUNG. ARDSHIPS, poverty, and difficulties of all kinds in early life, help develop and bring out the heroic qualities of a young, manly spirit, and assist in making it great, strong, and wise, if it ever becomes such. Whereas, if the pathway of a young man is made. easy, safe and smooth before him by the advice and pecuniary aid of others, it will practically be ruinous to character by making him weak, irresolute, and effeminate. It is not in the sheltered garden or the hot-house, but on the rugged Alpine cliffs, where the storms beat most violently, that the toughest plants are reared. It is not by the use of corks, bladders, and life-preservers that you can best learn to swim, but by plunging courageously into the wave and buffeting it, like Cassius and Cæsar, with lusty sinews; that difficulties and trials in life knit one's muscles more firmly and teach him self-reliance, just as by wrestling with an athlete who is a superior in strength, one would not only increase his own strength, but learn the secret of his conqueror's skill. A certain amount of difficulty, when happily overcome, undoubtedly does strengthen resolution, invigorate the will, and toughen the cords and sinews of the mind and heart. But let the obstacles thicken around any human spirit until they become practically insurmountable, they crush it to the earth. Poe, in "The Raven," speaks of such an one, "Whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast, and followed faster, Of Never--nevermore." " No human spirit can bear up long under the crushing weight of despair, and whenever difficulties and trials in life are of such a nature, or come so fast, as to induce this state, then they cripple, hinder, and bruise the mind more than they assist in developing its latent resources. The mother eagle, when her birdlings have grown large and strong enough to fly, calls them out of the nest, drives them to the edge of the cliff, and then deliberately pushes them off. But does she abandon them then? By no means; on the contrary, when she sees them fluttering and falling farther and farther down, swifter than an arrow she darts beneath them, lets them fall upon her strong, wide back, and carries them triumphantly to the old nest again. This is nature's method of developing latent power, and from this we may gain a hint for human reason to profit by, in the treatment of young and growing minds. HARDSHIP IN EARLY LIFE. A certain amount of hardship in early life seems essential to ultimate success, but every young mind needs to be under the constant watch-care of some fostering and protecting parent or guardian. To send young people out into the world, and then leave them to shift for themselves, or to start a young man on a course of education, and then say, "Oh, if he has the right stuff in him, he will manage to get along, somehow," is not only hazardous, but a policy which is prompted by false philosophy, not to say by criminal ignorance of life's dangers, and of the inherent susceptibilities of an ardent, youthful nature. We fully agree with Dr. Mathews, when he denounces "young men of vivid imaginations, who, instead of carrying their own burdens, are always dreaming of some Hercules to come and give them a 'lift.' The vision haunts their minds of some benevolent old gentleman-a bachelor, with no children, of course, but with a bag full of money and a trunk full of mortgages and stocks-who, being astonishingly quick to detect merit or genius, will give them a trifle of ten or twenty thousand dollars, with which they will earn a hundred thousand more. Or, perhaps, they will have a legacy from some unheard-of relative, who will suddenly and conveniently die." Also with another writer, who says: "One of the most disgusting sights in this world, is that of a young man with healthy blood, broad shoulders, presentable calves, and a hundred and fifty pounds, more or less, of good bone and muscle, standing with his hands in his pockets, longing for help." It is told of Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor of England, that, on being consulted by a parent as to the best means his son could adopt to secure success at the bar, he thus replied: Let your son spend his own fortune, marry and spend his wife's, and then go to the bar; there will be little fear of his failure." It was for this reason that Thurlow withheld from Lord Eldon, when poor, a commissionership of bankruptcy which he had promised him, saying it was a favor to Eldon to withhold it. "What he meant," says Eldon, "was, that he had learned (a clear truth) that I was by nature very indolent, and it was only want that could make me very industrious." Beethoven said of Rossini, that he had the right stuff in him to make a good musician, if he had only been well flogged when a boy; but he was spoiled by the case with which he composed. Shelley tells us of certain poets that they "Are cradled into poetry by wrong; They learn in suffering what they teach in song." A great musician once said concerning a promising, but passionless cantatrice: "She sings well, but she wants something, and in that something, everything. If I were single, I would court her; I would marry her; I would maltreat her; I would break her heart; and in six months she would be the greatest singer in Europe." These, however, are extreme views and extreme cases, and while such a course of treatment might be beneficial in some cases, it would, as in many others, prove the opposite. There is and must be in the very nature of things a wise limit, a golden mean, which may be said to constitute the boundary line between judicious giving or aiding, and judicious withholding of aid. POVERTY AND RICHES. Parents are often blamed for working hard to accumulate property for their children, and are sometimes called their children's worst enemies for so doing, but there are a great many heavier curses for children to bear than a "good start in the world" through inherited wealth. Sometimes, indeed, the proverb holds good that those rich young men who begin their fortunes where their fathers leave off, generally leave off where their fathers begun. But all rich men's sons are not fools or spendthrifts, any more than all poor children are bright, energetic, thrifty and saving. The Astor boys manage to keep that great estate together, and even to increase its proportions; Wm. H. Vanderbilt is no unworthy descendant of the great Commodore, and so in hundreds of similar instances. In fact, take the country through, the large accumulations of property, as a rule, continue in the same family through successive generations; the father handing it over to the children, and they in turn preserving it, if not adding to it, for the next generation, and so on. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, as to all rules, but these exceptions are no more numerous among the rich than among the poor. A far greater number of poor children turn out bad, than rich ones, according to the size of the respective |