UNEMPLOYED YOUTH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22326, 28 July 1934, Page 12

UNEMPLOYED YOUTH

Complaints that youth is decadent or disaffected, failing to take up its responsibilities in society, are commonplaces of history. “ The young people of to-day,” wrote Peter the Hermit, seven hundred years ago, “ think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them.” And persons possessed of good sense and a healthy optimism have through the ages smiled tolerantly at pronouncements of this nature. Unfortunately there can be no such easy dismissal of the comments which were made by the rector of the Otago Boys’ High School when he was addressing the Vocational Guidance Association this week upon the effect of unemployment among boys. Considerable numbers of young people leaving school to-day are receiving no opportunity of entering straightway into the ordinary life of the working community. The burden and privilege of useful toil,'which might be described as the one sure birthright of the individual in more prosperous times, is denied to them. Parents who are in a financial position to do so, usually recognise the need of some occupation for their sons in this critical stage of their mental and physical development by keeping them at school as long as possible, hoping that “ something may turn up,” or by entering them for a course of study at the university. This last expedient has helped to create a difficulty for the university authorities, owing to the danger of overcrowding in the professions, and it cannot provide a satisfactory answer to the parents’ problem unless a youth is studiously inclined. For the majority of parents it is financially impracticable to send' sons to the university, and when their secondary school education is completed they are thrown on to an employment market which cannot absorb them all. The moral deterioration which overtakes youths who arc unable to find employment, and are supported at home by parents unable always to conceal their impatience at this extra demand upon small resources, is not a matter of theory. ' It is not to be suggested that the character of all young men who arc thus deprived of work, but made free of more spare time than they know what to do with, is ruined or even impaired. There is sufficient evidence, however, to which Mr Kidson made reference, that, generally speaking, youthful delinquents are drawn from this dispossessed class, while there is a distinct risk that those who do not actually offend against society may develop an attitude of mind which may make them virtually unemployable when an opportunity offers. It is a disturbing and tragic commentary upon the state of world affaire that such a threat as these conditions offer is to be observed in this country to-day. It is difficult, impossible even, to suggest a solution short of that of providing for these youths work which is simply not available. Failing this ideal remedy, activities of the nature of those undertaken by the vocational guidance authorities offer the best method of keeping the unemployed youth of the community physically and mentally active. It is to be hoped, however, that employers of labour, when considering their commitments, will keep steadily in mind the benefit which they may confer on the younger generation by finding places for boys of school-leaving age in their businesses.