There were no examinations in those days. A
man, for instance, who happened to have the
instincts of a sailor, could, preposterous as it
seems, get into the navy without being able to
spell with certainty, or might hold a commission
in the army with but an indifferent knowledge
of the solar system. Why, even the Times
newspaper informed us not long ago that society
had no right to expect persons over thirty
years of age to know anything, for the simple
reason that the education of all such individuals
terminated before the period of competitive
examinations had arrived.

Under these circumstances, worthy sir, I
think your common sense—with which,I confess,
that you appear to me to be very well endowed
—will show you that among the many changes
which mark this great and glorious age must be
ranked a considerable alteration in the relative
positions of father and son—of senior and junior.
Consider how splendidly we have been educated.
Consider how glibly we could answer all sorts
of questions on scientific and other subjects, by
which I firmly believe that you and your
contemporaries would be instantly gravelled. Try
us with anything you like; the distance between
the planet Mercury and the moon; the manner
of the formation of the old red sandstone; dodge
us about with any number of teazers of this sort,
and see if we are not ready with answers. I am
afraid, sir, that you are but poorly informed on
such matters; indeed, I was not a little shocked
to hear your expressions of opinion the other
day when we were down at the sea-side
together, and when you flatly contradicted
Professor Barnacles, simply because he asserted
that the cliff on which you were standing was
entirely composed of the remains of minute
creatures.

But it is not only in matters of learning,
scientific or otherwise, that I feel convinced
that we of the new generation are in a position
to give some valuable information to you
of the old. This is only a very small matter.
It is on social questions, dear sir, that you
want advice most. Hints as to how you can
best adapt yourself to the changed position
in which you now find yourself, how you may
escape from the social snares by which you
see yourself surrounded, how you may meet
the difficulties which will spring up in your
way when advancing along a road of which you
know nothing—how, in short, you are to get
through that portion of life which remains before
you, creditably, sagaciously, securely.

Influenced, then, entirely by a desire for your
welfare, my good sir, it is my intention to send you
from time to time a few words of counsel and
direction on such matters as appear to me likely
to prove difficulties and stumbling-blocks in your
way; for you must remember, sir, that this period
which is such a puzzle to you, who have formed
your ideas under circumstances so different, is
not a puzzle to us juniors, for the simple
reaspm that we are used to it, and have known
no other.

I am sometimes, dear but inexperienced sir,
extremely uneasy about you. You cause me
a vast deal of very anxious thought. I have
observed you much of late—more, probably, than
vou imagine—and it seems to me that you are at
times disposed to fight against the inevitable
march of modern events, and to set yourself in
opposition to the irresistible tide of progress.
Sometimes when listening to what I will
venture to call the conversation of the period, you
appear almost bewildered. The sentiments
expressed seem to be too much for your powers
of endurance. The instance I have already
quoted of your reception of the remarks of
Professor Barnacles on the formation of certain cliffs,
is a case in point; and I now remember, that on
another occasion when the same gentleman was
discoursing on the Darwinian theory of development,
you exclaimed, " Why, bless my life and
soul, does the man mean to tell me that my
grandfather was a monkey?"

Do not think, however, for a moment that I
want you to attempt too much. With your
enthusiastic temperament and your very strong views,
it would never do for you to attempt to live in all
things the life of the day. Be satisfied, respected
sir, with a negative course. Do not by any
means distress your anxious son by outraging
in word or in deed the feeling of the period,
but, on the other hand, do not attempt to
keep pace with the foremost performers in the
race which we are all more or less engaged in
running.

One of the first great changes of modern
times, by which one cannot fail to be struck,
and of which I am reminded by my last sentence,
is the change in our pace. Within the memory
of a person of your respectable age, this has
passed from a steady trot, which might be long
and innocuously sustained, to a tearing gallop,
such as few of us can keep up for any length of
time. Don't you attempt it, sir, whatever you
do. It is this, viewing the subject largely,
which is the principal and chief of all our
changes, and it is to this that most of our new
developments of personal character, and the
variations of our bodily and mental health, are
mainly traceable. Complaint is made in these
days—and, Heaven knows, not without cause—
of the sad increase of nervous diseases and brain
affections. We find men engaged in scientific
pursuits or great commercial and financial
undertakings; occupations of which it is a leading
characteristic that he who engages in them
must work against time, must come to as many
important decisions—in any one of which a false
move would be fatal—in the course of a day, as
needed a few years since to be arrived at in a
month. We note of such men, when we meet
them socially, that they are getting dull, absent,
wanting in perception. In some rare moment
of his leisure we hold converse with a man of
this sort. We walk about his garden with him
for the ten minutes he has to spare before
he starts, by train, for the City. By-and-by he
leaves us, as we suppose to make ready for his
journey. But he does nothing of the kind. He
steals away to his dressing-room and blows his