The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-02-04
Chicago Tribune)

Three college students, two boys and girl,
appeared before a New Jersey church con-
gregation the other day as advocates in the
cause of modern youth. Their arguments and
their fervors were not new. The plea was for
a truer Christian spirit The youth Of yester-
day was it was announced, no more moral than
the youth of today; and young people are not
as bad as some persons claim
We sympathize with this trio made to de-.
fend this possession of something rightfully
theirs. The chronic whimper about the inqul-
ties of the younger generation is reaching the
point where it only irritates instead Of stirring
to remedial philosophy. The younger genera
alton is an inevitability. Why argue about it?
It had no more hand in it's environment than
it did in its heredity. It did not make itself {;
it was made.
What other period in history can show such
focusing of social forces as impinged OH this
younger generation?
The younger generation has grown up dur
ing the climactic period of industrialism, in the
era of the salesman, calling for and reward
ing aggressive action rather than retiring
reflection
1t has grown up in the shadow of the great
est war in history, with all that the war meant
of heightened emotions and revision of nor
NAL standards It lives in the period of scieH-
tific realization Of science in contest gradually
winning over long-held and cherished theo-
ries. It has seen another element conquered,
both as means of transportation and a means
of communication. It lives in day Of general,
almost wholesale, education, with the eemen-
tary schools, high schools, and colleges crowd.
ed beyond capacity. Higher education is &C.
copied as the desirable thing. The absence
from home of thousands Of young people dur
ing the major portion of four important years
is considered reasonable. And not only educa-
ton, but co-education, is taken to be natural
and good.
The younger generation lives in an era OF
emphasis on physical achievement and perfec
ton, on sports and the bodily graces, with their
franknesses and propinquities.
In this country it lives IN period Of great
prosperity. What were once luxuries have
been placed within its reach and have become
commonplaces. The automobile is the usual
and most prevalent example. It lives in great
cities with their wider field of accelerated
promiscuous social contacts; and in flats, with
their narrow repression of natural social free
dom.
It lives during the adjustment period of wo.
mans independence, with woman's rights
recognized by men and wOman's place still tt
be found by women.
It lives during a period of moral self-con
seriousness, with living by precept on trial arc
terrifying its position in the only way it knows
! how-by imposing more precepts, transmitting
what it calls the higher command into human
legislation. It lives during period in which
the whole status of the marriage Relationship
and the unity of the family is being examined
and revised; during period when the dlvorc;
rate is fifteen per hundred marriages. i
lives at time when all about it, in what j
reads, what it sees, what it hears, there il
utter realism.
These are few Of the factors in the live
Of the younger generation. The list is 2 hodge
podge Of causes and effects; the line OF demar
cation is many times impossible OF distinc
ton. The younger generation has contributes
to some Of these factors; it is itself q factor
But considered effectively its environment ha
been fashioned by q concentration OF some 9
the most forceful movements in social history
i People will go on talking about the younge
i generation as people always have, with som
measure of sympathy and some measure c
criticism. But what need for the younge
4 generation to talk about itself? That IS tn
] word to the earnest young people who fe
] called on to defend themselves and their time
from the earnings Of older folk who made ther
] and their times what they are. Let the young
/ q generation keep still and live like the young
ler generation. Let the older generation do tn
talking. Il the younger generation talks 70
much, the older generation viii BEGIN to thin
! there Is something really the matter and tal
! Steps function which the older generate
! stil reserves for itself and quite rightly.