A WHOLESOME VIEW

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 34, 9 February 1934, Page 2

A WHOLESOME VIEW

AGE LOOKING AT YOUTH “I have reached aud passed m.T four score years, and 1 have found my strength neither labour nor sorrow. On the contrary, 1 have found it exceedingly good, and my life pleasant and even jolly,” writes Mr. Silas K. Hocking, the novelist, ini the Evening News. He proceeds to pay a tribute to the young people. "L have heard old people complain that they cannot make friends of the younger generation, that young people fight shy of them, and that they can find no common meeting ground. But that may be just as much the fault of the old as of the young. Old people are apt to be unduly critical and even dictatorial and refuse to look at life and the world from any point or view but their own. Hence they are regarded as fossils and kill-joys. I am bound to confess that I have immense admiration for the younger generation. I don’t think England has ever pro duccd a finer type of young man and woman—clean-limbed, clear-eyed, frank and fearless. They have come into the world at a difficult time —a time of stress and storm and uncertainty, and 1 believe they will uphold and hand down to their successors the best traditions of their race. 1 have found them, with rare exceptions, generous and open-minded, willing to listen, eagt’r to learn and anxious to be friendly. They recognise, in spite of a pose of egotism, that their forbears, while we old people should recognise that there is a lot we may learn from them. “Life is whut we make it. Our todays are the outcome of our yesterdays. We reap as we sow. From the same materials we build hovels or palaces. We have wills and strength to use in right directions or in wrong. Hence whether old age—if we live to be old—is a wail of remorse or « song of thankfulness depends on ourzelves. If we hold fast to our ideals, do our job honestly and to the best of our ability, and keep our conscience clear, we shall ho able to look back without regret and forward without feax.”