Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-28
Youth Is Not Yet Doomed!


and some steady work. But for those
who did not have much before, the ma
chine ege has on the whole brought
greater comfort and q more varied
rather than monotonous life My
Scotch grandfather was a poor man. 1
suppose Mr.. Lewis would say that his
youth was doomed He went to his
grave under the impression that the
machine age had given him his oppor-
tunity.
Perhaps Mr.. Lewis would say that 1
was begging the question II / cited
George Washington, Benjamin Frank
lin, Abraham Lincoln, as examples of
what he calls doomed youth" They
certainly are not exactly what he Is
talking about, but I can't see why they
shouldn't be. This country is full of
instances, in this respect like them, of
men and women whose youth would
seem to be hard. but in the end it
turned out to be excellent preparation
for great life. Other countries can
furnish quite as many Illustrations of
the same kind.
The youth of the leisure class, I adj
init. is going-that peculiar concept Of
youth which Mr.. Lewis has in mind, but
which he does not sufficiently define
that ideal Of slow and decorous ripen-
ing, Of which oxford is the symbol and
Matthew Arnold was the prophet. This
ideal presupposeS family fortune, or
at least, as Mr.. Lewis says, "affluence. I"
1t was bound to disappear as soon as
We gave poor boys chance at an edu-
cation.
Opposes Lewis View.
II were to give an account of youth
today. 1 would speak of it in a mood
strictly the opposite of Mr.. Lewis
Granting that we are entering upon an
enormous social and economic revolu-
ton, l believe that human nature will
continue essentially as it now Is, and.
so lar as l can see, youth will play a
larger role, not because the powers of
the world are exploiting it. but because
in these uprooted times youth is per-
mitted to mature as fast as in each
individual case it can. The prolonged
infancy of the leisure class worked in
some instances incalculable harm. There
are, no doubt. a few men and women
who can get their education for life by
sort OF tsnking-up process in the
beginning. but the more energetic we
are the more eager We usually are to
touch actual experience. In the lei
surely days of youth, to which Mr..
Lewis locks back with such regret. the
unexercised energies of college students
exploded in sheer rowdyism, even in
oxford and Cambridge, and many a
brilliant intelligence in the process of
having its infancy prolonged went to
seed.
The legend that the machine age
sets no value on experience seems TO me
a gross libel. 1t sets the very highest
value upon ability, of whatever age but
1t does not confound gray hairs with
wisdom nor old age with skin. Many
an old fool has driven buggy without
accident. His horse was not a fool. In
an automobile, however the driver
counts. Whether the driver IS 81 or 81
will concern only those of us who prefer
the driver of 81. / fancy that much of
the complaint against a machine age is
the challenge which any machine makes
to the prestige of those who have simply
lasted on from year to year Hand
labor was sometimes master craftsman
ship. but more often it was botch work.
Nowadays when we criticize the ma
chine civilization. having known no
other. We create for ourselves a myth
that all shoemakers, carpenters. masons
were noble artists. The facts are other
wise. Moreover. the mediocre shoe
maker in remote village had his neigh
bors at his mercy. They stumped
through life on his clumsy wares unless
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