Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 274, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1919 — EACH AGE HAS ADVANTAGE [ARTICLE]

EACH AGE HAS ADVANTAGE

Hard to Tell Which, From Childhood to the End, May Be Called the “Best” Which is the best age? Are we to believe the professor who tells us that a man’s best work is done before he is forty, or Robert Browning, who exalts old age and cries, “Grown old along with- me*—the best is yet to be I” Childhood, remarks a writer in Lon* don Answers, has a magic and a mystery which can never be regained. Out of its imagination a child shapes its own world and creates its own delights in life. Youth is the time when we find our greatest physical expression. Our Ideals take form and we are neither fettered by failures nor spoilt* by success. Normal youth believes it can conquer all obstacles and achieve all ends. Maturity knows better. The man of forty is balanced by experience, and while his mental faculties should have reached their highest point of development, physically he is not a back number. And what of Browning’s old age? Is the best yet to be ? Perhaps. The man who has been a failure Is near the end “ of his earthly troubles, and the man who has succeeded awaits with a sense of fulfillment, the next great adventure.