Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/324

318 the uses of the period of old age, he shows how the presence of three or four generations in a single social edifice gives to it far more value than is afforded by one or two. While the elders may contribute little to the direct profit of the association, they serve to unite the life of the community and bridge the gap between the successive generations. Professor Shaler shows that the average man up to the age of perhaps fifty has little or no time for calm reflection; that the necessities of existence demand that he pursue the gainful life, which is always more or less strenuous. Whatever possible period there may be for the individual to pursue the intellectual life must come afterward. And it does come. Is it necessary to argue that the world needs the assistance of the calm reflective mind? Remove this possibility, and mankind may never be able to learn whether life has either meaning or value—in the larger sense.

Recurring wars, he says, repetitions of political follies and the successions of commercial disasters, all show the need of adding in every possible way to the strength of the bond between generations, so that the life of society may gain a larger unit of action than is afforded by the experience of most of its active members. If the deeds of any single period could be the result of the experience of three or four generations of experienced men, rather than that of one, civilization would be an immense gainer. There would be fewer recitals of failure, fewer reversions toward savagery. This necessity is made evident, he says, because, notwithstanding the resources of our printed records, they convey only imperfectly the quality of one time to that which succeeds it. The real presence of the generations is necessary to the greatest extent that can be had.

He says that the idea of the apparent uselessness of man in advanced years is a survival from the time when a man's value in warfare was the paramount consideration; and he adds, "The generation which has seen an aged Gladstone guide an empire; a von Moltke at the three score limit beat down France; and a Bismarck at more than three score readjust the Powers of Europe, has naturally enough given up the notion that a seat by the chimneyside is the only place for the elders."