Juvenocracy

Definitions

"While we write, that Advent is in progress! It is the Advent of Youth—Juvenocracy in the ascendant! A flowery arch spans the breadth of Broadway, and under it winds, at this moment, the procession in honor of first maturity—manhood in youth! It scarce needed, it is true, that the world should be born again before its new monarch should make formal entry. It was, ten years ago, discovered in France—two years ago in England—last year in America—that the gray head was only the wisest while there were no books but experience! That which men once waited to know till the hair was silvered, is now taught the child at school—conned in the ambitious dream of the youth in his puberty. The world has “hung fire” in other ages, from the damp of burnt-out enthusiasm spread like a blanket over its brain-powder. Improvement has gone upon crutches. Action waited for enterprise to cough. Courage stayed to fumble for spectacles. The forenoon shadows of the sun of human intellect were of untrustworthy measure, and the dial to begin to work by was shadowed till post-meridian!"

Etymology