"
"And what becomes," I asked, "of the younger men who must enter the
world without property, without parents or protectors?"
"We are, after youth has passed, an indolent race. We hardly care, as
a rule, to cultivate our fields or direct our factories; but prefer
devoting the latter half at least of our lives to a somewhat
easy-going cultivation of that division of science which takes hold of
our fancy. These divisions are such as your conversation leads me to
think you would probably consider absurdly minute. A single class of
insects, a single family of plants, the habits of one race of fishes,
suffice for the exclusive study of half a lifetime. Minds of a more
active or more practical bent will spend an equal time over the
construction of a new machine more absolutely automatic than any that
has preceded it. Physical labour is thrown as much as possible on the
young; and even they are now so helped by machinery and by trained
animals, that the eight hours' work which forms their day's labour
hardly tires their muscles. Our tastes render us very anxious to
devolve upon others as soon as possible the preservation and
development of the property we have acquired.
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