to perform, that my mistakes involved boys in disaster, that I had
the anxious care of other destinies; and thus, almost before I knew
it, came a new cloud on the horizon, the cloud of anxiety. I could
not help seeing that I had mismanaged this boy and misdirected
that; that one could not treat them as ingenuous and lively
playthings, but that what one said and did set a mark which perhaps
could not be effaced. Gradually other doubts and problems made
themselves felt. I had to administer a system of education in which
I did not wholly believe; I saw little by little that the rigid old
system of education was a machine which, if it made a highly
accomplished product out of the best material, wasted an enormous
amount of boyish interest and liveliness, and stultified the
feebler sort of mind. Then came the care of a boarding-house, close
relations with parents, a more real knowledge of the infinite
levity of boy nature. I became mixed up with the politics of the
place, the chance of more ambitious positions floated before me;
the need for tact, discretion, judiciousness, moderation, tolerance
emphasized itself. I am here outlining my own experience, but it is
only one of many similar experiences. I became a citizen without
knowing it, and my place in the world, my status, success, all
became definite things which I had to secure.

The cares, the fears, the anxieties of middle life lie for most men
and women in this region; if people are healthy and active, they
generally arrive at a considerable degree of equanimity; they do
not anticipate evil, and they take the problems of life cheerfully
enough as they come; but yet come they do, and too many men and
women are tempted to throw overboard scornfully and disdainfully
the dreams of youth as a luxury which they cannot afford to
indulge, and to immerse themselves in practical cares, month after