just a boy

With all the comedy there is about a boy's life there is a deep philosophy running through it all. Flashes of wisdom, too, deeper and more varied than the diamond's gleam. The world is full of knowledge and wisdom and erudition. The ages of research, investigation and ex­ploration illumine the well-trodden path of the genera­tions, but every baby boy that comes into the world finds out that fire is hot and water wet by taking hold of one and falling into the other, the same old way we all found them out. But it is the grand old school of experience; the only school men will learn at, each for himself.

You look at them, the boys of appetite and noise, with their careless, easy ways, their natural manners and movements on the baseball ground, their marvellous, systematic, indescribable, inimitable, complex, angular awkwardness in your parlors, and do you ever dream, looking at these sturdy young engines of energy, of the overshadowing destinies awaiting them; the mighty struggles mapped out for their earnest lives; the thrilling experiences in the world of arms; the grander triumphs of patient toil in the fields of science, art and philosophy, to the fadeless laurels in the empire of letters? Why, the world is at a boy's feet. Work, energy, conquest, leadership and statesmanship slumber in his arms and carefree heart.

 Hannibal, standing before the Punic altar fires, and in lisping accents of childhood swearing eternal hatred to Rome, was Hannibal at twenty-four commanding the army that swept down upon Italy like a mountain torrent, shook the power of the mistress of the world, and bade her defiance at her own gates, while fear­stricken her warriors and populace huddled and cowered behind her protecting walls.

Napoleon in infancy spearing flies with a pin, build­ing snow forts at school and planning mimic battles with his playfellows, was lieutenant of the artillery at sixteen, general and victor at Toulon at twenty-four, and at last Emperor. However unworthy, it was by his manhood and the grace of his own right arm, his own brain, his own courage and dauntless ambition.

And the fair-faced soldiers of the empire, they who rode down upon the English squares at Waterloo, while the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the incense smoke from the altars of the battle-god shut out the sun and sky above their heads, who, with their young lives streaming from their gaping wounds, opened their pallid lips to cry, "Vive L'Empereur," as they died for honor and France, were boys-schoolboys-the boy conscripts of France, tom from their homes and their schools to stay the failing fortunes of the last grand army and the reeling empire. You do not know how soon these rollicking, happy-go-lucky fellows, making summer hideous with their baseball slang, may hold the state and its destinies in their grasp; how soon they alone may shape events and guide the current of public action.

Anon.