The young man of the present era on his twenty-first birthday is apt to find himself in a very prudent and conservative atmosphere. The difficulties of getting on are explained to him; he is properly assured that, though there is plenty of room on the top benches, the occupations and professions are crowded, if not overcrowded, and that he must buckle down if he would succeed. It is obvious to him that the field of adventure and fortune-seeking in foreign or strange places is practically exhausted. It is open to him, to be sure, to go to the North Pole in search of some one already there, or to study in a cage in the jungles of Africa the linguistic value of the howls and chatterings of wild animals; but these are manifestly poor pickings compared with the opportunities of the past when a considerable portion of the globe was still uninvestigated soil, and a reputation or treasure-trove was the tolerably frequent reward of leaving the rut of civilized life. It is plainly pointed out to him, too, that to be florid is regarded as almost a mental weakness in intellectual or progressive circles. He sees the lawyer who makes use of metaphor, bombast, and the other arts of oratory, which used to captivate and convince, distanced in the race for eminence by him who employs a succinct, dispassionate, and almost colloquial form of statement. He recognizes that in every department of human activity, from the investigation of disease-germs to the management of railroads, steady, undemonstrative marshallings of fact, and cautious, unemotional deduction therefrom are considered the scientific and only appropriate method. He knows that the expression of unusual or erratic ideas will expose him to the stigma of being a crank, a reputation which, once acquired, sticks like pitch, and that the betrayal of sentiment will induce conservative people to put him on the suspected list. All this is imbibed by him as it should be, in the interest of sincerity and sense. Under the sobering restraint of it the young man begins to make his way with enthusiasm and energy, but circumspectly and deliberately. He mistrusts everything that he cannot pick to pieces on the spot and analyze, and though he is willing to be amused, beguiled, or even temporarily inspired by appeals to his imagination or emotions, he puts his doubts or qualms aside next morning at the behest of business. He wishes to get on. He is determined not to allow anything to interfere with that, and he understands that that is to be accomplished partly by hard work and partly by becoming a good fellow and showing common-sense. This is excellent reasoning until one examines too closely what is expected of him as a good fellow, and what is required of him in the name of common-sense.