Above all it is important both for them and for ourselves to get rid of the language of despair.

There are many ways of entering upon death without the vulgar shedding of blood. Perhaps the most convenient is to cease to live in any real sense, to give up the use of the mind, to come to the conclusion that there is nothing more to be known, to drift like a straw on the flood, to take our opinions ready made and repeat them like a parrot, to look contemptuously on all independent efforts and speculation; and although a return to old-world superstition be impossible, for we cannot resurrect the past, these dead in life pretend to be still of the flock of the faithful ... and soon they reach the end they have sought, the annihilation in themselves of every noble human quality. That is the real death; let the cessation of breath be swift or slow to follow, it only causes to be laid in a coffin an object that was long ago a corpse.

But as decided not to see, not to hear, as may be pessimists and men of pleasure--the worst, of the pessimists--they see that a change is brooding over the near future: like passengers in a ship making its way across a stormy sea they feel the trembling of the timbers, the vibration of the vessel on which they are voyaging, and spite of themselves are awe-struck by the possibility of imminent disaster. To-morrow throws its troublesome shadow over to-day: the "social question," or to use their own language, "social questions" stand well out in the foreground of their outlook, and they know that obstacles and delays, however caused, are all in vain to prevent a speedy solution. The new era is at the door, and the great problem demands to be settled and bids all other questions take a back seat.

[...]

It is even said, and I could not venture to call it a libel, that the majority of our scholarly youth are contented with things as they are, and that their great ambition is to indoctrinate society with conservatism, and surprise their friends with what they call the "moderation" of their views; in this respect they modestly claim to be wiser than their parents, who cannot deny to have in their young days shared the prevailing enthusiasm. A strange phenomenon is the sight of young men who boast of feeling tired of life, as if the inability to admire, to enjoy, and to be happy were a merit rather than a misfortune!

But it is quite true that in this way die the idle rich. Beyond a doubt our modern university youth, although naturally proud of having passed through the mill of many examinations, would be unable notwithstanding their extravagant pretensions to teach the workmen much in the sphere of study and thought. No, their business is to be pupils, not to give instruction. In great popular movements--such as that of the Commune--the students were very sparely represented, while workmen supplied in plenty both sinews and brains. Not was the question merely one of work and wages; the interests at stake were those of the whole nation, indeed of all mankind. At the present hour, when a new dispensation is about to be ushered in, when the young knights of reform are preparing for their task, it is not in the avenues of the schools that the questions uppermost in men's minds are discussed most intelligently and with the keenest insight. The graduate is not necessarily the philosopher, nor does a well-stored memory invariably accompany an enlightened understanding. Often the dry-as-dust schoolman is poor in wisdom beside the shrewd man of the world who has gathered here and there the countless facts from which he evolves a wealth of general ideas. Your scientific man may shut himself up in his laboratory as in a prison, and misunderstand the great world without; but the people always form a consistent theory of the universe, be it true or false.

... It is the demoralization of the excellent which become the horrible. ... it seems to us in harmony with human nature that in the period of blossoming adolescence, well-developed strength, and love uncalculating, the young can most brilliantly show what stuff they are made of through acts of courage, sacrifice (I read "risk"), and devotion. If public opinion only encourage them no deed will appear too difficult for their daring... What might we not achieve with these prodigious fountains of strength, sustained by euthusiasm? When the young will no longer have the filthy lucre to corrupt at its very source their ambition, they will move freely towards their ideal, without the disgust of having to despise themselves and to despise their work, when general applause will encourage them to devotedness, what will be the bold enterprise from which they will shrink?

Such is the ideal that we propose to youth. In pointing out to it a future of solidarity and altruism we pledge them our word that in that future every trace of pessimism will have disappeared from their minds. "Give yourselves." But "in order to give yourselves, you must belong to yourselves."

– Elisée Reclus, The Ideal and Youth, 1895

note: An ideal is no fixed idea, worse, no abstraction, and worse yet, no destination. It is only an impression (idea) accompanying a direction ("L"). It can be an experimental turning point. It is a bend toward the future for the pleasings of the present.