The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-08-22
Short Memories

Every so often one hears a man who claims to have
been a devil in his day. make the remark that kids
nowadays don't do the things and have the fun that
we used to have"
If you permit him to develop the idea at length you
will learn further that children are less imaginative, less
daring, less venturesome than they used to be. That they
no longer play pirate, or Indian, or bandit. That the
gang spirit which ruled when the informant, along with
shorty" and skinny" and butch and the rest of the
old gang, skipped" school one fine spring day: that the
risks they took when they played follow the leader or
that time down at the old swimming pool or the time
they raided Old Man Browns melon patch, has died with
the passing Of the years.
They would have you understand that modernization
has affected the tempo of youth; that the children Of
today are being spoiled and coddled.
All of which is merely evidence that the gentlemen who
make such remarks have failed to keep up with the times
and are deficient in their powers of observation.
They might talk with H. o. saxvik or other executives
and teachers in the local schools to find out whether
children of the present day are lacking in imagination.
They might cultivate a few friends Of the younger
generation and if they are fortunate enough to win the
confidence of a group of boys they will learn that the boy
OF. today is doing essentially the same things that his
father did before him.
Pirate and Indian may have vanished just as they have
vanished from the literature offered for the young reader
of the present day. But Tom Swift is a vital character
and his deeds are just as wonderful as those of Frank
Reid, whom men of so or more will remember, or of the
famed Merriwell brothers who probably once were heroes
to men who have not been voting more than 10 or Is
years.
1t is true that we now have organized play where once
the only supervision was that accorded by mother or the
teacher or some older member of the family. Better facili-
ties are provided for play and real money is spent on
equipment intended to insure children Of good clean fun,
but the child mind of today is just as active as the child
mind of the preceding generation. Childhoodis dreams are
just as wonderful and just as real and the creative urge
which is, after all, the true salvation OF humanity, is just
as strong.
The long, white road which leads from the swimming
pool OF yesteryear is a one-way road@for most of us. 1t
is difficult to turn the mind of man back to the mind of
his boyhood except in retrospect. We are prone to assume
that, since W. live over those halcyon days only in our
minds. no one is living them now.
The swimming pool which we used to know may be
gone but there are others. The adventures which were
so real to us live only in memory, but other children took
our places as we grew to manhood and womanhood and
we left to them the mantle of our rose-colored dreams.
IT you would be prepared for a deluge of pithy COM
ment on weather conditions in South America, 1t is
we'll to be advised that it showed in Chile the other day.
A Rumanian girl, says a news item, is nearly seven
feet tall and is still growing. If she is depressed now,
she's in for a circus later on.