It is interesting, however, to note the opposing methods employed by carping age to correct the excesses of youth. When a Western State disapproves of the behaviour of its young people, it turns to the courts for relief. It asks and obtains laws regulating the length of a skirt, or the momentum of a dance. When a New England State disapproves of the behaviour of its young people, it writes articles, or circulates and signs a remonstrance. Sometimes it confides its grievance to a Federation of Women’s Clubs, hoping that the augustness of this assembly will overawe the spirit of revolt. I may add that when Canada (Province of Quebec) disapproves of the behaviour of its young people, it appeals to the Church, which acts with commendable promptness and semi-occasional success. All these torrents of disapproval have steeped society in an ebb-tide of rejected counsels. It would seem that none of us are conducting ourselves as properly as we should, and that few of us are satisfactory to our neighbours. In the rapid shifting of responsibility, we find ourselves accused when we thought we were accusers. We say that a girl’s dress fails to cover a proper percentage of her body, and are told that it is the consequence of our inability to preserve peace. We pay a predatory grocer the price he asks for his goods, and are told that it is our fault he asks it. If we plead that hunger-striking--the only alternative--is incompatible with common sense and hard work, we are offered a varied assortment of substitutes for food. There is nothing in which personal tastes are more pronounced or less persuasive than in the devices of economy. Sooner or later they resolve themselves into the query of the famous and frugal Frenchman: “Why should I pay twelve francs for an umbrella when I can buy a bock for six sous?” The most hopeful symptom of our times (so fraught with sullenness and peril) is the violent hostility developed some years ago between rival schools of verse. There have always been individual critics as sensitive to contrary points of view as are the men who organize raids on Carnegie Hall whenever they disagree with a speaker. Swinburne was a notable example of this tyranny of opinion. It was not enough for him to love Dickens and to hate Byron, thus neatly balancing his loss and gain. He was impelled by the terms of his nature ardently to proclaim his love and his hate, and intemperately to denounce those who loved and hated otherwise.