THE FUNERAL TRAMP OF YOUTH

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 142, 12 March 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE FUNERAL TRAMP OF YOUTH

Childhood Is Losing Its Playtime

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp . . . Left, right left, right. . . . Hear the little feet? . . . It’s a grim rhythm—the measured tread of the children of Europe, marchifig as to war.

Slep by step, country by country, the youth of Europe is being swallowed up by the insatiable State. Now’ the Bolish boys are to follow the Germans into labour camps as a prelude to conscription for military service. The Austrian Government is combining two separate youth organisations into one, the Austrian Youth Folk, which is expected to put all boys from the age of 11 to 18 into uniform for purposes of sport, military drill and political education. These moves follow the lowering of the conscription age in Russia and the extension of military service in Germany. The purpose, like that of the Nazi work camps, is to insure that no boy escapes training for war. Yesterday one might have asked whether the democratic Sattes would be obliged to follow this lead. To-day France supplies the answer. A bill introduced into the French Chamber provides for compulsory physical training for boys and girls from 6 to 21. While it is not proposed to make this training' as frankly military as the German, it is “pre-military” none the less. The aim is to adapt French youth to the “new trends” by beginning to prepare them for army service in the elementary schools.

Over increasing areas of the world the young are being regimented as they have not been since the days of ancient Sparta. All the autocracies begin as youth movements. Not only do the youth organisations of Russia, Germany and Italy take an entire generation .from the earliest age and educate it for war rather than for peaOe, but this generation is brought up to regard itself as the bulwark and tlie property of the regime. The child goes into political and premilitary training at the same time — when he starts to school. For years

he is drilled to serve the State. His sports are not for exercise and hi 4 games are not for fun, but to develop a husky Communist, Nazi or Fascist. By the time'he matures, from 18 to 21 he is completely taken over by the Government for full-time training. The physical effects of this training are impressive. The marching youth of Europe are a truly formidable parade of strong, brown, disciplined automatons who follow their leaders gladly and without question. “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.”

It is easy to believe that the social effect is democratizing. In this youth, moulded to one pattern and fused to one purpose, all distinctions are ironed out. They have a sense of community and integration. They belong not to their families, their class, their creed, or themselves. They belong only to the State.

The marching youth are paying the highest tax of all to support the new systems. They are paying for their youth. For what the youth levies mean is a levy on the best years of life.

No longer for these drilling children the irresponsible playtime and happy make-believe of childhood. No longef the carefree hours of adolescence, the do-nothing hours in the sun when the imagination works. No more free time for idle dreams. No more choices, or even the illusion of choices it those lost margins between school and life when the young fumble and look ahead and engage in the exciting adventure of finding themselves and their opinions. No more opinions. These are irreparable losses for the young and for the world which they fertilise and renew. The lost Spring can never be recovered. For those who remember the fresh freedom of the morning hours, there is no sadder sight to-day than the lengthening regiments who march on without knowing that their parades are the funeral march of their youth.