THE ADVENTURE OF YOUTH

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 143, 14 December 1933, Page 8

THE ADVENTURE OF YOUTH

The widely different conditions facing youth at the present day and when he himself left school were contrasted by Mr. Dowriie. Stewart in his address at Scots College last night. In his own day, Mr. Stewart said, the country was prosperous, and there were ample opportunities for the boy who was ready to work. Now these opportunities are harder to discover, and even for the most willing the prospects of advancement are uncertain. Mr. Stewart did not suggest how these conditions were to be corrected, but he outlined the method tried in those countries where planning and reorganisation, on a nation-wide scale have been attempted. In such planning the tendency is to make conditions safer for all, but to limit the scope of individual achievement. The individual loses some of his individuality and becomes more merged in the State. Hitherto this method has not found favour with the British race, which has relied more upon individual initiative than upon conscious State planning. For the time being,. it seems, the State must exercise a wider control over the activities of its members. There must be more planning so that difficulty and hardship may be lessened; but whether this State direction will be a temporary phase to tide the nation over an emergency or will become a permanent feature of our life will be mainly decided by the present generation of youth. Youth is well equipped, and there is no reason to suppose that its courage is less than the courage of previous generations; but the times demand a new recognition of responsibility and an active interest in the forces which will shape the future of the State.