TREND OF MODERN YOUTH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17108, 14 November 1929, Page 4

TREND OF MODERN YOUTH

j PRECEPT AND PRACTICE BORSTAL’S RECLAIMING EFFORT j Whilst of necessity the Borstal system was partly punitive, its greatest efforts wore in the direction of helping youths who had left the straight path to rut race their steps and heroine decent members of society, said Mr. B. L. Dalhwd, Prisons Controller, in an address to fathers ami sons at the Y.M.C.A. at Wellington. Mr. Dal lard said lie would confine his thoughts mainly to the Borstals, as those detained there were young fellows with feelings, ideas and emotions similar to their own, but hadmade some 'tragic mis-step for which they were paying the penalty exacted by society. The loss of liberty, though irksome, was not the most serious part .of the business. Doss of position, shattering of prospects, besmirching of character and good name, all followed in the wake of wrong-doing, but what I burned most deeply into the soul was ' the worse than dearth wound to those whom the offender loved—father, (mother, sister, brother —amd who loved him. How often one heard the plea, “Don’t let my people know”; “Don’t lot mother or, father hear of this; it ■ will break their hearts.” SUCCESSFUL METHODS.

There was :i‘ spark of the Divine in every human soul. That was why today, instead of merely inflicting punishment for punishment’s sake, they strove to touch that chord in a man’s make-up that would respond to things more noble and worth while. The results were surprising. Only 9 per cent, of Borstal cases, when discharged, appeared again before the Courts.

The lads were not wholly bad. Am j eminent psychologist had said, “There , is no shanp line of cleavage by which the delinquent may be marked off from the non-dcliiiqueiiit. ” Another great j writer had said that every youth was a potential criminal and when they! saw a fallen one might think with I thankfulness, “There, but for the! grace of God, goes any one of us.” By research and improved sanitation, by organised social effort, the treatment of sickness and poverty had been lightened, and what had been done for the obstacles to health and happiness must be attempted for wider and more profound evils that beset the growing soul. HOME TRAINING. How many parents recognised the sanctity and importance of early influence, precept and training? To what extent was it recognised in homes and schools that it was by religious training applied early in life that, the lawabiding instinct was created by the force of its imperativeness; the essence of instinct being that it was independent of reason, and in order to be effective it must be impressed in very early life. It was parental indifference and neglect to inculcate standards of integrity, virtue, manliness, and a sense of noblesse oblige, that was underlying the present-day difficulties of modern youth. The materialistic and selfish love of pleasure, with its inevitable wastage of manhood and womanhood, boyhood, and girlhood, was a ghastly negation of the Incarnation and the Atonement —that incomparable example of love of Father and Soil—and everything for which Christianity stood.