Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-28
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they could persuade more expert rival
| to settle among them, or unless they
could take a trip to another town. The
machine made article meant the end OF
Inferior handicraft.
Believes Youth Benefits.
I don't see how youth can fail to
change In fact, it would seem that the
machine age has taught youth in gen.
eral a higher standard of performance,
nobler conception of efficiency,
truer spiritual direction in human
labor than our forefathers had. I say
youth in general because 1 insist upon
thinking Of the problem Of youth with
out reference to classes. / know that
at all times certain favored spirits have
gone as far toward human excellence
as seems possible, but it is tragic dis
illusion to examine the tate OF other
youths in their time. Let Shakespeare
stand for Stratford; don't look into the
literary interests of the boys he grew
up with. Remember the youth Frank
lin in the printing Offices, but don't
persuade yourself that his fellow ap-
prentices were heading toward a des-
tiny like his.
In other words, should like to think
of youth in terms Of that democracy
which Mr.. Lewis does not believe ina
ITO create" he said, lis to cease to be
democratic" Well, many of us will not
define democracy in those terms. In
this country in the days before some Of
our colleges began to initiate the pro-
longed youth of the British leisure
classes a group of young men in the
Raleigh Tavern organized the Phi Beta
Kappa Society. Their professors did
not organize 1t for them. They them
selves, before the machine age, had gone
adult. One of them was John Marshall.
Why should not their interest in the
mind be democratic? Their individual
gifts were not Identical, but together
they shared a concept of the good life
which would have done honor to old
age and which they we're fortunate to
arrive at early.
like to repeat the saying of one of
my former colleagues at Columbia-that
the unconfessed purpose OF education is
to keep the younger generation from
competing with us too soon. Is that
really what Mr.. Lewis has in mind?
Is he really concerned about youth or
Is he troubled for what he calls ex-
perienced age, which he says youth Is
replacing? In many respects our for
NAL education wastes time. We take
years to teach what under little pres
i sure could be learned in months. We
say that the process of slow spoon-feed-
ing iustlfies itself because it permits
youth to season more thoroughly.
Urges Education for Old.
I fancy that the spread of adult edu-
/ cation will remove our fear OF youth,
masked under solicitude. AS the ma
chine age moves on and the man of As
or SO is thrown out of his job to make
room for a more efficient youngster we
shall see that our quarrel is not with
/ the efficiency of the young, but with the
| incomplete education of the old And
We shall educate the old. Unemploy-
ment problems as they affect men past
40 are largely the result of that out
worn theory of education which thought
We should learn during a protracted
youth and never go to school again. At
present we are at the halfway stage in
| which We speak of re-education. 1t
will not be long before we recognize
! that education, even to some degree
education of a formal kind. should
! parallel our work in the end of our
days. This new attitude has caused the
| psychologists to re-examine the old
prejudice in favor of youthful recep-
! tivity We are now told that the mind
in later years can on the whole absorb