Evening star., 1925-04-12
BY DREW PEARSON.

our schools-if there be any-I
A went first to the president of
Dartmouth College. DIR. Ernest NJ
Hopkins has set heads wagging more
than once with the audacity of some
of his pronouncements about educa-
ton. He is what is known as a lib
eral. And his views are so pro-
nounced and so thoroughly digested
that it required no pauses between
my questions and his answers. With
out further introduction I give those
answers.
Q. Is modern youth in a moral
slump?
A. 1 do not believe so. 1T depends
altogether, of course, on what one
considers moral retrogression. I am
perfectly conscious that if one starts
with the standards, conventions and
inhibitions OF the last years of the
Victorian era, our young people today
must give an impression of moral
laxness. I am certain in my own
mind, however, that this is all a
matter of outward appearance rather
than of inner character.
/, myself, am enough influenced by
the conventions and standards of
recent decades of the past so that I
believe there Is some genuine loss
in the changed relations between the
sexes, and / think that in these mat
ters it is not wholly gain nor COM
pletely progress that reserve has
been exchanged for a rather blatant
frankness, that poetry has been ex-
changed for prose, or that romance
has been lost in the effort to be real
istic Nevertheless. 1 do think that
by any stretch of the imagination
could these changes rightly be con-
sidered as constituting a moral slump.
Better Than We Were.
When we hear boy and girl talk
ing together with a frankness that
would send their grandparents into a
dead faint. we brand them as morally
lost But they mean nothing by it,
and there is nothing fundamentally
wrong with them.
AS a matter of fact they are much
better than we were. / remembe r
when my class graduated we went to
Montreal on a grand jamboree, after
which about half the class had to
spend the night keeping the other
half out OF the vice districts. That
sort of thing dosen't exist any more.
At Dartmouth we have accurate in
formation that only six men last
year suffered from social diseases.
That is a very small number out of
1000 men. 1t was much higher in
the colleges during my day.
Formerly no man was ever barred
from a fraternity because of i'm
morality. But just recently mem
Der of a wealthy family which had
sent its sons here for generations
was blackballed from every frater-
nifty because he was morally loose.
What of ReIIgionf
Q. Has modern youth lost its re-
hgion?
A. When any one asks me that
always want to ask him for a def
milton OF religion. If by religion you
mean fundamentalism, then l say.
Yes, youth Is hopelessly lost" How
ever, l am a crank on that subject
In my opinion, too many people these
days are attempting to hold US to the
exact doctrine taught 1000 years ago.
Our whole method of life has changed
since then. 1 remember the brilliantly
colored picture cards that were
passed out in my Sunday school, with
which they tried to drum into our
heads everything about the old and
nothing about the new. 1 am not
sure but what Sunday school did me
more harm than good.
There is a certain sect of Buddhism
whose priests once decreed that no
new doctrine should be adopted nor
any beliefs changed in any way. That
sect becsme frozen and thereafter
lost all its followers.
Religion with us has become frozen.
That's why II is losing its hold on
youth.
@. Do you believe in compulsory
religious services for studentsf