RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 19

RANDOM REMINDER

ONWARD, CHILDREN

There’s no doubt about it: we are all making far too many demands on the young ones today. No wonder some of the youth of the day want to alter the world very rapidly, without actually working at it Or working at anything for that matter. Most people will agree that standards of education, in at least some of the sciences, have improved vastly, although it cannot be conceded that communication through the written word is very much better than it used sometimes dazzled by the to be. Parents today are

erudition of their offspring, and perhaps it is this acceptance of superiority which makes us older people expect too much of those coming along to take our places. It must have been something like that which led to the insertion of a rather strange advertisement in the classifieds a couple of weeks ago. It was under a “wanted” heading, and the appeal was for someone to knit matinee jacket from birth, also two pairs of small booties. What a surprise old Doctor Cameron will get, one of these days, when he holds a new-born

infant upside down to perform his bottom-smack-ing rite, and discovers it has a couple of size 10 needles in its hands, and has already done several rows of the scarf it will wear when it goes to school.

At this stage, a child of five who can play a Beethoven concerto, even with the backing of a full orchestra, is regarded as a prodigy. But things will no doubt change. Before many years have passed, the P.Y.M. might have to move over and make room for the younger ones. It might be a good move.