Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-12
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the Bookloper.


Comfortable oblivion would be prefer
able to continuous limelight. except
perhaps for those of the publicity
loving type. whats to be done with
the young peoplo?" Is being asked
everywhere by parents, teachers and
especially by writer's, who are over
joyed to find in modern youth a sub
ject for endless discussion. Young peo-
pie have no respect for their elders, no
sense of responsibility, no desire to
work, no refinement, no religion, nc
morals; they are selfish, vain, ex-
travagant. novelty chasers, pleasure
mad--such is the verdict of some
writer's. Others have come to the de-
Tense Of youth and are trying to show
that, given time, youth will become
1.-THE older generation" and may make
better one than that of today.
Meanwhile, youth says, to quote
Philip Gibbs, "If there's anything
hate, it's all this CUFF about youth.
Percy Marks, who by his PLASTIC
Age" caused many uneasy hours to
mothers of boys and girls in college,
has written another novel, Lord of
Himself" in which he takes a more
hopeful view of youth. Carl Peters.
who becomes lord of himself" is an
old young man with an inferiority
complex because of too much mother
domination. He practices all the con-
ventional modern amusements-night
motor rides. drinking, petting parties,
night clubs, shows jazz of many
sorts, lines of talk"--yet remains es-
sentially Victorian. Cynthia Day, too.
is a modern, but not at all bad
Sort" and we feel sure that she and
Carl will be a thoroughly domestic
couple.
A warm defense of modern youth,
with some doubts but not many, is
Philip Gibbs Young Anarchy" An
old bachelor, the uncle of two young
people and the friend of two others,
tells the story. He is a novelist who
starts out to study modern youth and
becomes fascinated with it. His
feminine counterpart is a vigorous
and wealthy unmarried woman who
is so sympathetic with youth that she
continually finds herself in an
apologize attitude toward her own
cotemporaries. God is on the side of
youth" says Miss Elizabeth Pomeroy,
in the first line of the story, and that
represents Philip Gibbs own
opinion. Jocelyn and Nancy Pomeroy,
Mervyni and Lettice Wingfield, race
from one end of London to the other,
till Big Ben boomS out or 4 in the
morning. in the pursuit of gayety and
adventure. with their band of the
Glad Young Things. Jocelyn leaves
the home of his father, the Bishop of
Burpham. too precipitantly to take
his pajamas and toothbrush, and be-
comes a Labor candidate for Parlia-
ment. Gle is defeated) Nancy writes
a novel which grieves and angers her
father. causes the ladies of the
cathedral clique to ask her to resign
from the Girls Friendly Society and
the Children's Holiday Fund, but
makes her mother secretly proud.
Lettuce and Mervyn are both in
satiable pleasure seekers. f1out their
parents and refuse to think of any
serious work. Yet, when the general
strike comes, as challenge to
government" all these
young people are the first to volun-
teer for the hardest and dirtiest
labor. Mervyn stokes a train from
Paddington to Plymouth, Jocelyn
drives milk truck from Warwick
shire to London, and Lettice serves
"sausages and mashed" at the can.
teen for volunteer workers, until even
her young energy is exhausted Mr..
Gibbs allows Elizabeth Pomeroy to
sum up. 1.-THE younger crowdr' she
says. What's wrong with them, /
should like to know? If only
we could pull together
The beginning of the Age of Metal
succeeding the Stone Ages, is imagina-
lively described by James Henry
Breasted in his Conquest of Civiliza-
tion." He says: "It was probably in
the peninsula of Sinai that some Egy-
tan, wandering thither. once hap
pened to bank his campfire with pieces
of copper ore lying on the ground
about the camp. The charcoal of his
wood fire mingled with the hot frag.
ments of ore piled around to shield
the fire, and thus the ore was re.
duced, as the miner says-that is, the
copper in metallic form was released
from the Jumps of ore. Next morning,
as the Egyptian stirred the embers,
he discovered a few glittering globules,
now hardened into beads of metal.
He drew them forth and turned them
admiringly as they glittered in the
morning sunshine. Before long, as
the experience was repeated, he dis.
covered whence these strange, shin
ing beads had come. He produced
more of them. at first only to be worn
as ornaments by the women. Then
he learned to cast the metal into a
blade, to replace the flint knife which
he carried in his girdle. Without
knowing 1t, this man stood at the
dawning of a new era, the Age of
Metal; and the little bead of shining
copper, which he drew from the ashes,
IL this Egyptian wanderer could have
seen 1t, might have reflected to him
a vision of steel buildings, BROOKLYN
bridges, huge factories roaring with
the noise of thousands of machines
of metal, and vast stretches of steel
roads along which thunder hosts of
rushing locomotives. For these things
of our modern world, and all they sig.
Nifty. would never have come to pass
but for the little bead of metal which
the wondering Egyptian held in his
hand for the first time on that event
full day so long ago. Since the dis.
covery of fire over $4,000 years earlier,
man had made no conquest of the
things of the earth which could com.
pare in importance with this discovery
Of metal"
Another successor to the Egyptian
papyrus story of the "Shipwrecked
"Sindbad" and Robinson
Crusoe," to mention only a few of
the type, is w. l.. Georges post
humous novel Children of the
Morning." 1t is so similar to Rose
orphan Island" which
a short time ago, that Mr..
George and Miss Macaulay might
with economic advantage have col
Elaborated and produced one novel in
stead of two. In each case a ship
full of children is wrecked off a
tropical coast-Miss Macaulay's is a
Pacific Island and Mr.. Georges is
the children proceed
to evolve socially as the author
thinks they would evolve, without
traditions or previous generations to