THE "LOST TRIBE"

Evening Star, Issue 21630, 27 January 1934, Page 9

THE "LOST TRIBE"

THOSE WHO GREW UP IN THE WAR “ The young who grew up in the war, and are now any age between 25 and 30, may, I think, be regarded as a lost tribe,” says Mr St. John Ervine, in his recent book, ‘ The Theatre in My Time.’ “ Their semi-illiteracy, their shallow minds, and extraordinary trivial interests astound and sadden their elders.” A strong protest has been addressed to a London paper by Millicerit M. S. Baylis, of All Saints’ Vicarage, Elton,' Bury, Lancashire “A lost tribe!” she exclaims. “ When I consider ray contemporaries, men and women who are doing most useful and intelligent work in the world to-day, I boil with indignation at Mr St. John Ervine’s mournful assertion that we are a ‘ lost -tribe!’ When I number among my own slender acquaintance many competent teachers, two men qualified as doctors, several keen young clergymen, a thriving woman journalist, a woman dentist, nurses doing valuable work for the church, social welfare, club work in the slums among the unemployed, and many happily married, I simply refuse to believe in ‘ the shallow minds and extraordinary trivial interests of my own generation. “Mr " St. John Ervine mentions our ‘ semi-illiteracy,’ and blames the war for it. The schools were not closed during the war, and, if anything, we were applied closer than either before or since to our studies in the years 1914 to 1918, because our people had fewer holidays and were less, inclined to rush their, children off to places of amusement, or for week-ends in the country as in 1933. Some of us may be semi-illiterate, just as some of the past and some of the present generation undoubtedly are. Such a state is not confined to one generation,, and I really do not see why it should be attributed exclusively to mine. “ The young people who are now leaving our schools and colleges are, according to Mr St. John Ervine, * abler and better educated and more serious-minded ’ than the generation I am attempting to defend. As able, and as well educated, perhaps, but certainly not more serious-minded. Our upbringing during the war was not exactly frivolous.* We are, I think, more sombre, more thoughtful, more serious than the younger generation treading so cheerfully on our heels. We understood little of the happenings around us, but we felt much, and many of us were afraid of what we could not understand. We became, as a result, not ‘ shallow,’ but sensitive and rather solemn.” .