"If I seem to attack this sacred institution it is because it has a very seamy, sore and searing side to it. In the first place there are usually parents at home. What a pity that parents and children cannot be of the same age; that there cannot be some understanding between them. What a sorrow that those who brought us into the world should have no sympathy with us--that those whom we love most should understand us least; that there should be such conflicting contrasts in feeling, in thought, in temperaments and tendencies. But regrets do not alter circumstances. They exist and they are obdurate. The old look backward: the young look forward. The old have become hardened, inured to things and indifferent: to the young this is the greatest danger. The old are relics of the past; the young are the hopeful heirs of the future. To the former life is a lost game, to the latter it is a beautiful dream. The old stand with their backs to the rising sun, with their faces towards their graves; they belong to a dying world and--the pity of it!--they would shape the destinies of those who belong to the glorious future; they would make the children prematurely wise and deprive them of most of the fun in life and all the benefits that come from folly, error and indiscretion. Age would convince youth that life is real and earnest and a practical business--which is not true in the case of youth--and should not be. There is constant disagreement, or agreement--which is often worse, for it implies submission of the weaker party. The freedom of the young is ever curtailed. The home is often their prison. Youth and age is a bad match, and that's the disadvantage of home. See this moonlight: it is beautiful, is it not? But a flower must have sunshine in which to bloom. All respect for age: but youth must have freedom.