When this zeal does not exist, the result is perplexing.
It is a curious violation of what we would fain believe a
fundamental law--that the final return of the deed is upon the
head of the doer. The deed is that of exclusiveness and caution,
but the return, instead of falling upon the head of the exclusive
and cautious, falls upon a young head full of generous and
unselfish plans. The girl loses something vital out of her life
to which she is entitled. She is restricted and unhappy; her
elders meanwhile, are unconscious of the situation and we have
all the elements of a tragedy.
We have in America a fast-growing number of cultivated young
people who have no recognized outlet for their active faculties.
They hear constantly of the great social maladjustment, but no way
is provided for them to change it, and their uselessness hangs
about them heavily. Huxley declares that the sense of uselessness
is the severest shock which the human system can sustain, and that
if persistently sustained, it results in atrophy of function.
These young people have had advantages of college, of European
travel, and of economic study, but they are sustaining this shock
of inaction. They have pet phrases, and they tell you that the
things that make us all alike are stronger than the things that
make us different.
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