ar, calls for gin cocktails, chews tobacco, and talks politics. His
theoretical education, whether he has profited much by it or not, is now
superseded by a more practical one, in which he obtains a most rapid
proficiency. I have no hesitation in asserting that there is more
practical knowledge among the Americans than among any other people
under the sun. (note 7).

It is singular that in America, everything, whether it be of good of
evil, appears to assist the country in _going a-head_. This very want
of parental control, however it may affect the morals of the community,
is certainly advantageous to America, as far as her rapid advancement is
concerned. Boys are working like men for years before they would be in
England; time is money, and they assist to bring in the harvest.

But does this independence on the part of the youth of America end here?
On the contrary, what at first was _independence_, assumes next the
form of _opposition_, and eventually that of _control_.

The young men before they are qualified by age to claim their rights as
citizens, have their societies, their book-clubs, their political
meetings, their resolutions, all of which are promulgated in the
newspapers; and very often the young men's societies are called upon by
the newspapers to come forward with their opinions. Here is
_opposition_. Mr Cooper says, on page 152 of his "Democrat":--

"The defects in American deportment are, notwithstanding, numerous and
palpable. Among the first may be ranked, _insubordination in children_,
and a great want of respect for age. The former vice may be ascribed to
the business habits of the country, which leave so little time for
parental instruction, and, perhaps, in some degree to the acts of
political agents, who, with their own advantages in view, among the
other expedients of their cunning, have resorted to the artifice of
separating children from their natural advisers by calling meetings of
the young to decide on the fortunes and policy of the country."

But what is more remarkable, is the fact that society has been usurped
by the young people, and the married and old people have been, to a
certain degree, excluded from it. A young lady will give a ball, and
ask none but young men and young women of her acquaintance; not a
_chaperon_ is permitted to enter, and her father and mother are
requested to stay upstairs, that they may not interfere with the
amusement. This is constantly the cas