We further take it for granted, that children will then be content to be vivacious; will be left to the witching ways, the pulpy and dewy freshness of the morning glory of life, until they shall have gradually come to the ripe maturities of action; that they will not fall from grace into the condemnation of mischievous notice; will not daily burst into astonishing feats of memory or attainment before reluctant, domestic audiences, nor carry on social insurrections against the United States of their begettors until they have achieved their independence, nor hold a Fourth of July every day in the year. Should reform in this direction not take place as just anticipated, then we shall expect that infantile precocities will be utilized before they shall have evaporated into the insipidities of manhood and womanhood. At present, it is well understood, children are anachronisms, sadly out of place, squandering uselessly their best powers without any corresponding responsibilities; legally treated as minors, when they are in fact majors; denied the legal rights to marry until they reach a period when marriage is tame and idle, and the means to support a wife are exhausted; prohibited from going to Congress and being Presidents, while full of original ideas and administrative ability, and allowed to go when they have oozed away through the leakages of active growths all capacity, and become just—what we see them at Washington; and wasting in pantalets the money which, if suffered, they might earn better than the old heads which are now only figure-heads. We shall not be surprised to see, if not during Grant’s time, at least before the century runs out, a constitutional amendment relieving aged Americans—those, for example, who have attained the ripe, very ripe age of twenty-one—from the duties and cares of office, and securing to the public the benefit of young vigorous intellects, varying from twelve to seventeen years of age.