PLEA FOR YOUTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 162, 10 July 1937, Page 7

PLEA FOR YOUTH.

"SPIRIT" OF REVOLT. MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE. A RISING AGAINST WAR. A plea for youth was made this morning by Dr. Paul L. Dengler, of Vienna, who gave his first lecture of the conference at the Auckland University College. Dr. Dengler is an accomplished lecturer, and he gripped his audience—he made members see what he described. He has the gift of humour and he can tell a storyThe story he told to-day concerned the youth movements of Europe. He traced their beginnings and showed their development. He described the change wrought by the war. He told of the post-war attitude of youth, and that led him to speak of the revolt of youth against a world controlled by the old. Finally, he showed how the geographicdivisions of the Continent had been responsible for moulding the nationalism with which those movements had become tinged. In 1900. he said, a teacher in the German Rhineland named Schirrmann became "bitten by a strange bug." He conceived the idea of taking the children from the industrial areas out in the country for walks. "Men called him mad, for he was an idealist," said Dr. Dengler. "That was the beginning of the European youth movements.

The lecturer showed how, as a result of the war, youth had revolted against the system which made that horror possible. It was a combination of bitterness and disappointment. Some thought that men should return to a God whom they had forgotten. Some wanted a world brotherhood of men; others were simply imbued with a romanticism. But they all had that spirit of revolt in common.

Finally, Dr. Dengler dealt with the effect on the youth movements of the geography of Europe. ''Our world there is so narrow." he said. "There are so many different peoples so close to each other. Each people is intensely nationalistic and on its guard against the other." Youth thus grew up with different ideas; and internationalism had given place to nationalism.

The speaker thought the solution could cowie only through economics—a "United States of Europe,"' bound together bv a common economic destiny. The movement grew, and the first bands were known as the Wandering Birds' Movement or the "Vandervogel." After a time hostels were provided for them. The movement continued to grow. Young men and women longed to set away from the sophistication of the cities. It was reminiscent of Rousseau—back to Nature, so to speak.

By 1913 the movement was powerful. The spirit of revolt had increased among youth, and that was its manifestation. Then came the war.