TO-DAY’S YOUNG PEOPLE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 14 November 1928, Page 7

TO-DAY’S YOUNG PEOPLE

‘■'l here is nothing new in the new youth, except that i| is allowed to do things wo were forbidden to do. Tt is the same old youth with the bridle off,” savs iUr A. r \. Tcrhune, the .American novelist, in an article written during a recent visit to England, lie recalls that some 20 years ago there was a reaction against the strict disciplining of children. To-day’s crop of young people is the outcome of all those high-sounding and inspiring theories about not punishing or coercing children. They were allowed to grow tip untrammelled and unfearing. J hey called themselves, and meekly are called by us, ‘the present generation’.” Air Tcrhune continues. “They are not the present generation. They are tinnext gcncriaiion. It is we—we who are between 30 and 70—who are the true present generation. It is we whose cheque books pay their bills. It is we whose mercantile houses and whose offices and whose factories and financial marts and whose political assemblies keep the world running. I have yet to hoar of any overwhelming number of boys and girls of from 18 to 24 who sit in any legislature, or arc at the bead of great law firms or manufacturing interests or shops, or arc raising self-respect-ing families or ruling the destinies of empires. It is we older folk who are in such jobs. We produce. ’they consume. Iho next generation is merely mi training to take our places when wo shall fall out in the rcsistlessly moving process-ion. Arc the youngsters getting a good training for that duty? From the start they are making are they likely o carry on our work as we wish it might be carried on?”