IS MODERN YOUTH ALL RIGHT?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 17, 21 January 1933, Page 13

IS MODERN YOUTH ALL RIGHT?

Morally and physically the present generation is superior to the last. Every day and in almost every way they keep on getting better and better. Thus in two sentences is epitomised the reply to a stern reproach on modern young people—and especially tlieir parents— by Miss Lillian Barker, governor of the Aylesbury Girls' Borstal Institution. Mies Ellen Wilkinson criticises Miss Barker for advocating stricter parental control on the company their children keep and their way of keeping it. "The old idea, of keeping children innocent," Miss Wilkinson said to the "Sunday Graphic," "had the effect of keeping them ignorant, and that has led to many a moral tragedy. Children cannot be made strong by keeping them tethered to their parents' apron strings. That is not the way character is built 1 up. They can bo guided, but they should not be made 'good' by force of pains and penalties. Miss Barker complains that children are allowed too much of their own way. I do not think so. I think parents to-day are keener on letting their children learn the lessons of self-reliance—that is not throwing away parental responsibility." Miss Paxton, of the London Y.W.C.A., said: "With the freedom that is allowed young people in these times, we believe that our duty is to teach tlicm how to develop the power to use that freedom sensibly."