Even if you really do know more than they, don’t let either of the old folks see that you think so.  That attitude on your part is almost indecent.  Be grateful also.  How singular that where young men have everything to be thankful for, they are so seldom grateful.

When parents surround them with every comfort, and make what are luxuries to the millions necessities to their children; when the youth is furnished clothes made by the tailor, and money to spend as he will, and special schools and the most expensive university; when he is given vacations at seashore, in mountains, on lake, or abroad, instead of at good hard work, as the sons of the people must spend their vacations; when a year or two of travel follows his day of easy graduation; when all is his that thought, and love, and gold can give, do we not frequently find the young man unappreciative of, and ungrateful for, these blessings?

Such a man usually takes it for granted that he ought to have all these things, and a good deal more; that they are his as a matter of course, and no thanks due to those who gave them; that they are not much, after all, compared with what some other fellow with a richer father, and a mother still more doting, has and spends.  “Give a boy too much money to spend and he won’t do anything else.”  There are some exceptions to this, notable and splendid exceptions, but they are so few that they prove the rule.

On the other hand, it is generally true that young fellows who, in comparison with the class just described, have nothing to be thankful for; who must earn their own bread and “help support the family”; who “work their way through college,” and during vacations put in a good year’s labor to get the money for the next college year; who, the day after graduation, thin as a wolf and as hardy, must start right in then and there to earn that very day’s meals and that very night’s resting-place—­such men, as a usual thing, develop the glorious qualities of gratitude, consideration, and deference.

There is “no place like home” to such men, “be it ever so humble.”  They look upon life as a wonderful and splendid thing, for which they are indebted to father and mother.  Their manhood’s morning is very beautiful to them; but its light is not one-hundredth part as beautiful as the radiance which beams upon them from the eyes of one dear woman whom they call mother—­a woman wrinkled and worn and wan, perhaps, but to such sons exquisitely lovely, with something in her beauty not quite of this earth.

I don’t quite understand the psychology of this phenomenon, and never knew any one who did understand it; but every one of the scores of observers with whom I have talked upon this subject have noted the same fact—­the too frequent ingratitude and lack of appreciation of young fellows who have everything to be grateful for, and the fine appreciation of life shown by young men who, in comparison, have nothing to be grateful for.