ork, when you yourselves shall
once rightly have tasted the sweetness of plodding on in the customary
rut--then the desire to be better and wiser than all others will soon
fade away. They do not by any chance entertain these good expectations
of you in imagination alone; they have found them confirmed in their
own persons. They must confess that in the days of their foolish youth
they dreamed of improving the world, exactly as you dream today; yet
with increasing maturity they have become tame and quiet as you see
them now. I believe them; in my own experience, which has not been
very protracted, I have seen that young men who at first roused
different hopes nevertheless, later, exactly fulfilled the kind
expectations of mature age. Do this no longer, young men, for how else
could a better generation ever begin? The bloom of youth will indeed
fall from you, and the flame of imagination will cease to be nourished
from itself; but feed this flame and brighten it through clear
thought, make this way of thinking your own, and as an additional gift
you will gain character, the fairest adornment of man. Through this
clear thinking you will preserve the fountain of eternal youth;
however your bodies grow old or your knees become feeble, your spirit
will be reborn in freshness ever renewed, and your character will
stand firm and unchangeable. Seize at once the opportunity here
offered you; reflect clearly upon the theme presented for your
deliberation; and the clarity which has dawned for you in one point
will gradually spread over all others as well.

These addresses adjure you, old men! You are regarded as you have just
heard, and you are told so to your faces; and for his own past the
speaker frankly adds that--excluding the exceptions which, it must
be admitted, not infrequently occur, and which are all the more
admirable--the world is perfectly right with regard to the great
majority among you. Go through the history of the last two or three
decades; everything except yourselves agrees--and even you yourselves
agree, each one in the specialty that does not immediately concern
him--that (always excluding the exceptions, and regarding only the
majority) the greatest uselessness and selfishness are found in
advanced years in all branches, in science as well as in practical
occupations. The whole world has witnessed that every one who desired
the better and the more perfect still had to wage the bitterest battle
with you in a