The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1929-06-07
BY PROF. NJ. C. ABBOTT

R8OO
Wither modern youth? Every
father and mother here present
has asked this question, with a
prayer in heart. Every thought.
full adult has watched the gestures
of this interesting generation OF
which this class of 1929 is a select.
ed sample, marvelling at the
frankness of their thinking and
shrinking from the di~rectness OF
their actions. You have asked
yourselves what it is all about
and whittier the young people OF
today are trending. At a thous-
n d commencement gatherings
over the land this year, this same
question will be pronounced. 1t
is a topic of continuing interest in
the papers and magazines, in the
literature of church and school.
Flaming Youth they r call
ed by the phrase makers, and in
some ways the title is an apt one.
An inspection of the Readers
Guide for the past several years
reveals the fact that an average
of four articles a month are ap-
pearing in the magazines of III
rent circulation, all devoted to the
problems of this new generation.
Sample titles run like this: Our
Terrible Young Persons, 1.-The I'm
spanked Generation" Give Ameri-
can Youth a Chance" "They Want
to Know" championship of
Youth" 1t would appear that our
young people of today are some
thing to charge on the national
conscience.
Criticism Of Youth Old
But the interesting thing about
this attitude of mind is that it is
in no sense new. The fathers and
mothers of today heard a similar
type of Jobs comfort when we
were young. We were the cause
of many headshakings and much
doleful prophecy. Better still,
from the ruins of ancient Troy
comes a manuscript in which some
moralist of that ancient day de-
plored most bitterly the folly Of
youth and the depravity of the
times.
New and strange-wild at times
as the ways of this generation
may be, the motives that prompt
them are far from novel in human
experience. In every age and
time, youth has been confronted
with this same problem of adjust
ment. 1t is at the same time the
misfortune and the high privilege
of this generation to come to their
testing time in a period when the
ak is at the foot of the tree, and
when every tree that does not Of
fer a promise of good and useful
fruit is due to be cut down n
to be east into the fire. Old land
marks of thought and action are
becoming obscure through disuse,
and the milestones of past gen
erations are falling rapidly into
the rear in this day of b~reath-tak-
ing speed and mighty transition.
Prouress is Cumulative
Progress is cumulative, especial
" here in America. Unhampered
by the weight of age-old customs,
has acquired a mighty dynamic
impulse. SO rapid has been the
advance in American life during
the past three centuries that
every generation has had thrust
upon it problems that have chal-
it's keenest abilities and
called forth its best capacity.
Every day has been a new day,
with it's own peculiar problems
More rapid social change now
place in a single decade thar
in whole centuries past. and the
rate is being continually a~cceler-
ated. The STYLE invention of the
automobile has in the last fifteen
years altered our lives more fund
amentally than anything else i"
the last thousand.
From the vantage noint of tfi9
Nineteen Hundred TWENTY
Nine, we NAV look back on three
centuries of wonderful progress.
During this period, America has
gathered to her bosom people
from many lands, speaking a med
ley of languages. practising a wide
variety Of social and religious Gus
toms. and schooled in habits of
thought as varied as their origins. |
America. orr common mother. has
made of al these diverse elements
one family. A continent has been
brought under control. Our peo-
pie have become one among them
selves, speaking the same Ian
and settling their differ
ences by the devices of peaceful
politics.
A Wonderful Story
This is the greatest ACCOMPLISH
ment of modern times. The story
of it is the most wonderful in an
history. It is a story of steady
growth and unfolding, of the ir-
resistable onward march of q con
auering people in which each sic