Page:A Few Hours in a Far Off Age.djvu/28

Rh CHAPTER III.

REDERICK, whose eyes have been brightening as his mother's recital proceeded, exclaims:

"How I should like to have been that grand old savage, thus to live in memory of all ages, for justice! (Then reflectively) But, dear mother, I cannot see why we should wait so many years before we can be useful. Veritée has passed the standard, and in about a year I expect to reach it. Yet we are to remain powerless in the State for so many years longer!"

"True, my son, and most wisely is it so. When you have your standard certificate, the most important part of your education will commence. Knowledge of the world with its present and future requirements; growth of justice and benevolence over impulse; and a strength of judgment which only the watchful experience and earnest reflection of many years could teach. If the guidance of human kind were again given to youth, the world would once more be thrown back to the nascent condition of youth; and (with an amused tone in her voice) the older senators of both sexes would have to resort to a third chamber that their wiser politics might not be disturbed by the noise of un-thought ideas. I admire your homage to the grand old savage, as you call him but that appellation was not well chosen. For though he lived in a half-savage time, and was surrounded by many who were nearly savages, he was one of the few in advance of their era—not comprehended by