Youth

Where is the man who looks not back on the days of Youth with a silent pleasure; witness the wanderings of his arduous minds recalls the hopes and fears of that period with delight, but alas: it has passed away like the dew before the sun. Perhaps the rising hopes of youth are [?] and a season of misery hanging over the head of helpless man. The first blossoms do not always produce the fairest fruit. The fairest hopes are too often torn up by the tempest or wounded by the arrow of the burning sun. How is the man afflicted when having arrived at the maturity of manhood, he looks back on the days of his youth if they have been passed away without improvement if he has foolishly consumed them in trifling occupations or lost them in idleness. What more distressing object can be held forth to [?] them as man who has flitted away his youthful hours and neglected the season of improvement when facilities are debilitated by inactivity or destroyed by intemperance. On the other hand how delightful is the sight- to view a person which has implanted in his mind those virtues which [??] when mind the Creator has given the seeds of improvement and give a mind capable of extensive requirements, how beautiful it is to see such a man lending his mind to the cultivation of those seeds of future usefulness and to behold their growing glory is far more [?] than the [?] of Lebanon or the magnificent Oak [?] in an [?] from the [??]. Youth is the time for discipline and preparation for the more active scenes in the stage of life. In this season we should properly acquaint ourselves with our faculties [?] them to the exercise of those vocations in which we intend to employ in after life, that we may act our parts with facility, and success in the great theatre of life pass through the social scenes of manhood to age of death with firmness looking back on a life well spent in indication to do good, dwelling on those acts with pleasure that the hallows of death may be deprived of its thorns & the dark.

¹ For more examples of Dr. Calvin McQuesten's school work see the following documents: W0339, W0346, W0349, W0350, W0353.