--Miss MULOCK.

When the ideals of an older generation are forced upon a younger, already
struggling under new and strange environment, the effect is often opposite
to that intended. The elders in their pride of knowledge, and the
real-estate promoters in their greed for gain, have been urging the young
man to own his house on penalty of shirking his plain duty. They say he
must have a home to offer his bride, as the bird has a nest. Building-loan
associations, homes on the instalment plan, appeal to the sentiments they
think the young man ought to heed.

The young man is often modest, almost always sensitive, and he prefers to
bear dispraise rather than to tell the real reason he hesitates. His ear
is closer to the ground, he feels even if he cannot express the doubt of
the disinterestedness of the land-scheme promoter, of the wisdom of his
father. He knows better than his elders the uncertainties of salaried men,
young men with a way to make in the unstable conditions of to-day.

The effect of this well-meant advice is not to hasten his marriage, but to
put it off because he is not allowed to take the course he feels safest.
Or if he is willing, the parents of his prospective bride are not, and so
young people do not marry on $1000 a year, for fear of the elder
generation and their supposed wisdom.

The young people are not justified by present-day conditions in owning a
house on an income of $2000 a year _unless_

(1) They have money to put into it which it will not cripple them for life
to lose;