Mr. Lowe, in delivering the prizes to the boys and
girls of the Warehousemen's and. Clerks' Schools, on Saturday last, made a rather melancholy speech on some of the characteristics of youth and age. He advised those who were leaving school above all to cultivate habits of frugality, and to avoid becoming dependent on any sort of unnecessary expense. "It is the cus- tom to say that youth is the time for enjoyment. So it is, but it is nature which procures the enjoyment. When people are young, mere existence is a pleasure. The earth, the air, the skies are for them so many openings into Paradise. As they grow older, these delights gradually fade away from them, and it is only then they need more adventitious and expensive pleasures." Do they ever need them ? We should say that it is precisely the natural pleasures,—the pleasures afforded by "the earth, the air, the skies,"—which wear best, which often even grow with growing age ; while it is the adventitious pleasures, the expensive social pleasures, that seem most splendid in youth, but fade away and become leaden-coloured in age.
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