YOUTH'S CHANCES

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 118, 21 May 1934, Page 6

YOUTH'S CHANCES

A correspondent In a Well-known journal recently commonted on the claims of modern youth to be given a chance by quoting names firoin the past of those who liad made good without appealing for opportunities. Pitt, he said, was only twenty-four when he became Prime Minister of England, Keats was a year older when he died, and Mendelssohn was only (Seventeen when he composed his overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream." John Ericsson, known as the inventor of tlie monitor, succeeded in many other things besides. He was a finished draftsman at twelve years of age, and a fully-qualifled engineer at fifteen. Cha'tterton's life elided at eighteen years, and Galois had made a world-wide reputation as a mathematician when he died at the age of twenty. Jane Austen was writing one of her best novels when she was twenty-one, and Alexander Hamilton was. a polished controversialist at seventeen, a member of Washingtori's stall' at twenty, and a member of the Continental Congress at twenty-live. From any dictionary of biography the li.st could bo extended indefinitely, said the critic, showing that much of the significant record of the race has been produced by young people who madeI their own opportunity. ■• ■ ■ - •