“IN A BAD WAY.”

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16625, 22 October 1925, Page 6

“IN A BAD WAY.”

OUR YOUNG FOLK. AN AMERICAN VIEW. A good many New Zealanders appear to lio worrying themselves over our young people—hoys and girls in their teens. These “future citizens ’ .may not he perfect, or the best in the world, but they are not the worst on record. This, at any rate, is the opinion of an American who writes of them in a Honolulu paper. The Australians and New Zealanders are nice people, hut terribly set in their ways. For instance, they firmly believe their younger generation stacks up better than ours. The merest glance over the situation will show the fallacy of this belief.

For instance, there is probably not a youth in a high school in either of those countries who knows how to mix a martini cocktail; who can tell you where to buy booze after closing hours. On the other hand tlie youth of those two countries seem to waste a lot of time in learning dry facts about theirs, and other countries; the English language and some foreign one; mathematics, and similar antiquated subjects. Why, some of them can even tell you who was vice-president of the United States during the war. Others have so wasted their time that they know just how the electoral college of this country is selected, and why. DON’T USE STAYCOMB.

The New Zealand or Australian high school hoy is a poor dancer—which further. shows the depths to which education has sunk...in those unfortunate lands. -• Instead of staysliek lie uses water, soap, and much rubbing to keep his hair in shape. He doesn’t realise that the true test of manhood is found in a petting party. His spare time is spent on the football field, on hikes and in wandering over the countryside. Some of them even walk to school—a distance of probably eight blocks—despite the fact that their parents are well-to-do and are auomobile owners.

The antiquated system of education pITV-ailillg !ii these two countries is aptly demonstrated by the fact that the youth of those lands waste a lot of energy in useless politeness. They do not understand the aristocracy of snobbery and rudeness. They descend so far as to be deferential toward their elders, to say “Sir” when speaking to their fathers. RESPECT THE GIRLS. They respect girls of their own age and haven’t so much as a wise crack to make when a group of the latter pass'them. I doubt if a normal youngster in the Antipodes has, during the past decade shown enough initiative to tell his mother “I won't.”

This fault, of course, lies with the parents; just as our own youths’ advancement in an'opposite direction is a direct result of the perfection of our own elders. The spiritual growth and development of ego of the Antipodean youth is sorely hampered by parents. There is a horrible instance of a father who, when told, “You be damned” by his son ,took the youngster out into tlie woodshed and beat him cruelly about the waterline with a razor strop. Since then the child has not shown a sign of development of ego and has done nothing to distinguish himself except become an orderly and likeable youngster. The poor child has not even shown an interest in the “Decameron” and similar instructive books. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS? So you can see that there must he something wrong with the system of training of the younger generation in Australia and Now Zealand. "What have they down there to compare with our recent Loeh-Leopold case, the stirring demonstration of individuality, and desire for scientific research? Not a girls’ school in, the Antipodes has Ijeen mentioned in the headlines of the papers as a result of jolly little parties where silken underwear and synthetic gin were the features. Tlie younger generation is in a bad way in Australia and New Zealand. And still tlie citizens of those countries point with pride to that generation. It’s just that British stubbornness again.