Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1916 — MYSTERIOUS YOUTH [ARTICLE]

MYSTERIOUS YOUTH

ONE CANNOT TELL WHETHER BOY WILL MAKE GOOD OR NOT. What Becomes of Most of the Bright Lights of High School Days?— Obscurity Takes Many In Later Life. What has become of Blanchard Ripley James? Long ago he was a high school classmate of mine out in Ohio, and now he is lost. The other day I found that they were advertising for his postofflce address in the village paper back home. It seems that for years and years he clerked in a store in Grand Rapids, after which he tightened up his belt strap and made a dive into the great West — with what success nobody knows, says “Sid” in The American Magazine. “Well, sir, I could not believe it. Blanchard Ripley James lost? Never! Why, he was the boy we voted as the one among us with the brightest future. The greatest things were predicted for him. He looked like Daniel Webster, kept his hair brushed, beat us all at our studies, took more interest in school than anybody—and, above all, how he could wag bis jaw? He was the best speaker of pieces that ever walked up the steps of the rostrum of the Second Congregational church. On graduation night he was our prize exhibit. The rest of us looked foolish beside him, and felt foolish. Our only pride lay in the fact that for the moment our names were printed on the program with his and we were going to receive just as good an imitation sheepskin diploma as he. But of course we expected that on the morning after graduation the gulf between him and us would begin to widen, and would increase until he would be talking on the floor of the United States senate, and we, with our wives and children, would be sitting in the visitors’ gallery happy in our membership in the “I-Knew-Him-When” club. But the whole thing has shifted. You can page the United States senate, and even the house of representatives, and you won’t find him. He is not there. Blanchard simply did not come through with the wallop. What is the answer? The answer is that youth is always a mystery. You simply cannot pick winners that early. You cannot distinguish between the able and the stupid, the slippery and the honest, the playful and the vicious, the imitative and the original, the weak and the strong, tho aggressive and the servile, the ambitious and the complacent. Youth is a period of uncertainty and hope. This is one reason why fathers and mothers are so happy over their children. Nobody knows what great surprise is in store. The slowest-appearing child in the family may (may, mind you) turn out to be a howling genius. At any rate, the neighbors had best not point the finger of scorn —not yet, not yet! For if they do they may have to take it back. And so, clear up to the commencement night, and for some time after, fathers and mothers can claim great things for every child in the family—and nobody will dare dispute them. Of course the world will finally call for a show-down, but when it does those who might >be interested in the result are themselves lost, or scattered so far that it would take an explorer to find them and carry them the news. Some boys die in youth—thus preserving forever the mystery as to their hidden talents. Usually it is said of such that they were bright and remarkable, with a great future before them. We all worship success —even going so far as to worship it where it does not exist.