Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-28
BY JOHN ERSKINE.

n K r. WYNDHAM LEWIS has his
M doubts about this age. In a
WI recent essay in The Sunday
j Star he has told lis that youth
is doomed because there is a
determined drive upon it By certain
Of replacing experienced labor by young
energy. The machine, according to Mr..
Lewis. has robbed years of their value.
1t is cheaper to employ youth than ex-
perience. The consequence will be that
premature middle age will be forced
upon the young and old age will perish
of neglect.
Mr.. Lewis has a way of bring dis
turbed about a good many things at
once and OF discussing them simulta-
neously and II had been turned loose
on these essays without the aid of the
headlin'S, perhaps / should have con-
cluded that they we're on one of several
other subjects. His indignation is
breathless, but in my opinion hardly
articulate. He leaves me with the dis
position not so much to argue with him
as to ask from time to time what he is
talking about.
For example. I'm highly rationalized
big business" he says, the machine
today takes the place increasingly Of
the man. A bank clerk, a post office
quires no intelligence or particular
training or skill" Here have to pause.
l expected Mr.. Lewis to illustrate the
way in which the machine takes the
place Of thu man. but thu bank clerk or
the post office employe hardly fills the
bill Their service may be routine, but
most of us would rather be bank clerk
with an adding machine than without
one. Does Mr.. Lewis think that the
invention Of adding machines has re-
duced the number of bank clerks? Or
does he think that the drudgery Of all
that figuring before adding machines
were invented was benefit TO youth?
But is is waste of time to ask those
questions, for in Mr.. Lewis next sem
tence 1 discover that he is off on a very
different theme. Some of us would
challenge the statement that the work
of a bank clerk or a post Office employee
requires no intelligence. Mr.. Lewis
drives in his own opinion. ITO receive
and to check paying-in books. do in
voicing, to sell a shillings worth of
3-half-penny stamps demands as little
intelligence as that OF which the least
gifted Bushman or Australian black boy
may boast"
Seeks Real Point.
Well. this is a statement for those to
zeal with VINO know now To- measure
intelligence. Again 1t would be waste
of time to d:bate the matter, for In the
next sentence Mr.. Lewis moves on to
what seems to be the real point of his
paragraph. The skin of the person
performing these miracles OF intelli-
gence is white and he is remunerated
in consequence more than a mere ma
tive would be- If civil servant. he
gets on top OF that a jolly little pen
SION" Now We have left youth far be-
hind and are discussing the injustice
of the color line.
1 find the same difficulties in Mr..
Lewis very sweeping assertions about
the tradition OF youth. The European
generally" he says, has had a certain
fixed conception with regard to the
leisurely growing up Of the human be-
ing, and certain hard and fast ideas Of
what youth should feel like, behave
like and do with itself-as a separate
communion, of a different clay to the
adult world If affluent, youth would
be different in this way for a period of
anything up to 25 years, or quarter of
century. Then adult life began. At
10 today the human bsing is little
adult Youth in the old sense will tend
more and more to disappear.