Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1912-02-07
CONSERVATION OF OUR YOUTH.

Vermont's legislature of 1901
directed the governor to appoint
committee to lookss into the general
subject ssof ssthe Conservation of ssthe
Natural Resources of Vermont. This
committee was appointed and is COM
posed of some of our most scholarly
men who are preparing articles on
various subjects of conservation which
are being published in the press of
the state. The articles are of prac-
tical value. the result of careful
thought on the subject as applied to
local problems. and will unquestion-
ably be of service to our comm On
wealth. But there is more vital
state today. The problem is deep
err one. 1t is greater problem in
every way. 1t is more difficult of an
alysis and more unyielding to remedy.
That problem is the conservation of
the V rmont youth.
No less an authority than ]. N Barss,
sup Dent of the Vermont Indus
tral school, who has means of investl-
cation that makes his statement ire
futable, said only last week in Bur-
nngton. before an audience which he
was addressing upon "The Social
Conditions of Verm ont" that crime is
positively on the increase and added,
ooh. to you people who say with Sc
much mock self.complacency, these
Because l know they are." Can the
state, the churches. the schools, nay
more, we fathers and mothers, sit by
with folded arms and see our criminal
record increase ten times as fast as
our population without making som
effort as state, as churches and as
individuals to conserve Vermont s
priceless asset, her youth
The Monitor has no prescripti on
which it proposes to have compound
ed by the Legislature and administer
by the executive and judicial de-
partments which is cure-all for the
alarming conditions found among tn e
youth of our state. Light doses of
certain brands of legislative cure-aII
might help. but the real remedy must
get at the root of the trouble and d.
rect is forces TO changing the course
of the youth from the influences of
evils that later lead to crime.
Tha MoDitap boIiauo, 49,
source of trouble originates in the
home and is we'll expressed by J.
Spencer Voorhees,. student of Amer
lean social problems. He says:
Many parents seem to have come to
general agreement that it is propar
not to enforce authority in the home
that discipline is not so wise as to
throw the whole responsibility of
choice upon unwise and immature
children.
mot enforcing their own God-given
authority, parents are unwilling that
authority snail be enforced in school
or church or anywhere. The result is
the formation of life according to the
lines of least resistance, which means
character without moral stamina.
81 meet many attractive young men
and women who frankly declare that
they are unwilling to accept RESPONSE
bility or to tie themselves down to
any course of self-dscipline. They
must be Free and their parents
say, Amen The result must be
disastrous to American civilization so
far as these young people are con.
cerned."
Prof. G. Walter Fisk of Oberln,
touching upon the subject of boy life
says:
''Our prodigal civilization certainly
needs the gospel of conservation. 1t
has been wasting its natural resource
es and the worst wastes have been in
the realm of boy life. Through neg
hgence, Ignorance, carelessness every
lty and village has been wasting
boys. We are altogether too content
ed If not more than half the boys go
to the devil.-if they are other folks
boys. AS we used to plant corn, five
kernels in the hill: Zone for the cut
worm. one for the crow, one for IN e
drought, and two to grow" likewise
we have been complacently growing
boys: One for the pool-room. one for
strife. one for the rum curse, and
two for life.
1.-The call of the age is for greater
efficiency. Modern business has dis.
covered dividends in the by-product
which used to be wasted to the scrap
heap. And we are at last asking
ourselves that searching question
''What shall it profit community, i
it gain the whole. world and lose it's
own boys?" Earnest men are reply
ing, Though we lose the whole
world, if t(please Godftwe will save
our boys" GFu4'm .n,t ~ r. i,ss
j4.f... '.tst..t. rJ.T t. tisH Httt 81 .tik
Town meeting is less than fou1
weeks away. After town meeting